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He began to look more like Napoleon

1*^ » I ■>-»■ » I I -

SIXES
AND SEVENS

O. HENRY r , £ ^

Author of "The Four Million; 9 "The Voice of the
dtp," "The Trimmed Lamp," "Strictly

t,» "Whirligig*"

PUBLISHED BY

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

FOR

REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.
1920

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,

INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

0. Cey
3 1)10

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

CONTENTS

Thb Last of the Troubadours

Thb SLBUTH8 ....

Witch™' Loates
Thb Pbidb of the Cities .
Holding Up a Train .
Ulysses and the Dooman
The Champion op the Weather
Makes thb Whole World Kin
At Arms with Morpheus
Thb Ghost of a Chance .
Jimmib Hayes and Muriel .
The Door of Unrest .
The Duplicity of Hargraves
Let Mb Feel Your Pulse .
October and June
The Church with an Overshot
New York by Campfire Light
The Adventures of Shamrock
The Lady Higher Up .
The Gr hater Coney . .

PAGE

3
21
32
58
46
64
74
81
88
95
108
117
133
154
174
WriEEL 178
197
Jolnes 204
214
220

Contents

PAQB

XXI. Law and Order 22f

XXII. Transformation of Martin Biamr . 250

XXIII. The Caliph and the Cad .... 258

XXIV. The Diamond of Kali 26f

The Dat We Celebrate .... 37f

SIXES AKD SEVENS

THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS

INEXORABLY Sara Galloway saddled his pony.
He was going away from the Rancho Altito at the
end of a three months' visit. It is not to be expected
that a guest should put up with wheat coffee and
biscuits yellow-streaked with saleratus for longer
than that. Nick Napoleon, the big Negro man cook,
had never been able to make good biscuits. Once
before, when Nick was cooking at the Willow Ranch,
Sam had been forced to fly from his cuisine, after
only a six-weeks' sojourn.

On Sam's face was an expression of sorrow, deepened
with regret and slightly tempered by the patient
forgiveness of a connoisseur who cannot be understood.
But very firmly and inexorably he buckled his saddle-
cinches, looped his stake-rope and hung it to his
saddle-horn, tied his slicker and coat on the cantle,
and looped his quirt on his right wrist. The Merry-
dews (householders of the Rancho Altito), men,
women, children, and servants, vassals, visitors, em-
ployes, dogs, and casual callers were grouped in the
"gallery" of the ranch house, all with faces set to

4 Sires and Sevens

the tune of melancholy and grief. For, as the coming
of Sam Galloway to any ranch, camp, or cabin between
the rivers Frio or Bravo del Norte aroused joy, so
his departure caused mourning and distress.

And then, during absolute silence, except for the
bumping of a hind elbow of a hound dog as he pursued
a wicked flea, Sam tenderly and carefully tied his
guitar across his saddle on top of his slicker and coat.
The guitar was in a green duck bag ; and if you catch
the significance of it, it explains Sam.

Sam Galloway was the Last of the Troubadours.
Of course you know about the troubadours. The
encyclopaedia says they flourished between the eleventh
and the thirteenth centuries. What they flourished
doesn't seem clear — you may be pretty sure it wasn't
a sword: maybe it was a fiddlebow, or a forkful of
spaghetti, or a lady's scarf. Anyhow, Sam Galloway
was rae of 'em,

Sam put on a martyred expression as he mounted
his pony. But the expression on his face was hilarious
compared with the one on his pony's. You see, a
pony gets to know his rider mighty well, and it is not
unlikely that cow ponies in pastures and at hitching
racks had often guyed Sam's pony for being ridden by
a guitar player instead of by a rollicking, cussing,
all-wool cowboy. No man is a hero to his saddle-
fcorst. And even an escalator in a department store
might be excused for tripping up a troubadour.

The Last of the Troubadours 5

Oh, I know I'm one ; and so are you. You remember
the stories you memorize and the card tricks you
study and that little piece on the piano — how does
it go? — ti-tum-te-tum-ti-tum — those little Arabian
Ten Minute Entertainments that you furnish when
you go up to call on your rich Aunt Jane. You should
know that omncs personam in tres partes divisoe sunt.
Namely: Barons, Troubadours, and Workers.
Barons have no inclination to read such folderol as
this ; and Workers have no time : so I know you must
be a Troubadour, and that you will understand Sam
Galloway. Whether we sing, act, dance, write, lec-
ture, or paint, we are only troubadours; so let us
make the worst of it.

The pony with the Dante Alighieri face, guided
by the pressure of Sam's knees, bore that wandering
minstrel sixteen miles southeastward. Nature was
in her most benignant mood. League after league
of delicate, sweet flowerets made fragrant the gently
undulating prairie. The east wind tempered the
spring warmth; wool-white clouds flying in from
the Mexican Gulf hindered the direct rays of the April
sun. Sam sang songs as he rode. Under his pony's
bridle he had tucked some sprigs of chaparral to keep
away the deer flies. Thus crowned, the long- faced
quadruped looked more Dantesque than before, and,
judging by his countenance, seemed to think of
Beatrice.

6 Sixes and Sevens

Straight as topography permitted, Sam rode to
the sheep ranch of old man Ellison. A visit to a sheep
ranch seemed to him desirable just then. There had
been too many people, too much noise, argument,
competition, confusion, at Rancho Altito. He had
never conferred upon old man Ellison the favour of
sojourning at his ranch; but he knew he would be
welcome. The troubadour is his own passport every-
where. The Workers in the castle let down the
drawbridge to him, and the Baron sets him at his left
hand at table in the banquet hall. There ladies smile
upon him and applaud his songs and stories, while
the Workers bring boars' heads and flagons. If the
Baron nods once or twice in his carved oaken chair,
he does not do it maliciously.

Old man Ellison welcomed the troubadour flatter-*
ingly. He had often heard praises of Sam Galloway
from other ranchmen who had been complimented by
his visits, but had never aspired to such an honour
for his own humble barony. I say barony because
old man Ellison was the Last of the Barons. Of
course, Mr. Bulwer-Lytton lived too early to know
him, or he wouldn't have conferred that sobriquet
upon Warwick. In life it is the duty and the function
of the Baron to provide work for the Workers and
lodging and shelter for the Troubadours.

Old man Ellison was a shrunken old man, with a
short, yellow-white beard and a face lined and seamed

The Last of the Troubadours 7

by past-and-gone smiles. Mis ranch was a little
two-room box house in a grove of hackberry trees in
the lonesomest part of the sheep country. His house-
hold consisted of a Kiowa Indian man cook, four
hounds, a pet sheep, and a half-tamed coyote chained
to a fence-post. He owned 3,000 sheep, which he
ran on two sections of leased land many thousands
of acres neither leased nor owned. Three or four times
a y£ar some one who spoke his language would ride
up to his gate and exchange a few bald ideas with
him. Those were red-letter days to old man Ellison.
Then in what illuminated, embossed, and gorgeously
decorated capitals must have been written the day
on which a troubadour — a troubadour who, accord-
ing to the encyclopaedia, should have flourished be-
tween the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries —
drew rein at the gates of his baronial castle !

Old man Ellison's smiles came back and filled hU
wrinkles when he saw Sam. He hurried out of the
house in his shuffling, limping way to greet him.

"Hello, Mr. Ellison," called Sam cheerfully.
"Thought I'd drop over and see you a while. Notice
you've had fine rains on your range. They ought
to make good grazing for your spring lambs."

"Well, well, well," said old man Ellison. "I'm
mighty glad to see you, Sam. I never thought you'd
take the trouble to ride over to as out-of-the-way an
old ranch as this. But you're mighty welcome. 'Light.

8 Sixes and Sevens

I've got a sack of new oats in the kitchen — 6hall I
bring out a feed for jour hoss?"

"Oats for him?" said Sam, derisively. "No, sir-ee.
He's as fat as a pig now on grass. He don't get rode
enough to keep him in condition. I'll just turn him
in the horse pasture with a drag rope on if you don't
mind."

I am positive that never during the eleventh and
thirteenth centuries did Baron, Troubadour, and
Worker amalgamate as harmoniously as their parallels
did that evening at old man Ellison's sheep ranch.
The Kiowa's biscuits were light and tasty and his
coffee strong. Ineradicable hospitality and appre-
ciation glowed on old man Ellison's weather-tanned
face. As for the troubadour, he said to himself that
he had stumbled upon pleasant places indeed. A well-
cooked, abundant meal, a host whom his lightest
attempt to entertain seemed to delight far beyond
the merits of the exertion, and the reposeful atmos-
phere that his sensitive soul at that time craved united
to confer upon him a satisfaction and luxurious ease
that he had seldom found on his tours of the ranches.

After the delectable supper, Sam untied the green
duck bag and took out his guitar. Not by way of pay-
ment, mind you — neither Sam Galloway nor any other
of the true troubadours are lineal descendants of the
late Tommy Tucker. You have read of Tommy
Tucker in the works of the esteemed but often ob-

The Last of the Troubadours 9

scure Mother Goose. Tommy Tucker sang for his
supper. No true troubadour would do that. He
would have his supper, and then sing for Art's sake.

Sam Galloway's repertoire comprised about fifty
funny stories and between thirty and forty songs.
He by no means stopped there. He could talk through
twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up.
And he never sat up when he could lie down; and
never stood when he could sit. I am strongly disposed
to linger with him, for I am drawing a portrait as
well as a blunt pencil and a tattered thesaurus will
allow.

I wish yon could have seen him : he was small and
tough and inactive beyond the power of imagination
to conceive. He wore an ultramarine-blue woollen
shirt laced down the front with a pearl-gray, exag-
gerated sort of shoestring, indestructible brown duck
clothes, inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican
spurs, and a Mexican straw sombrero.

That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged
their chairs out under the hackberry trees. They
lighted cigarettes ; and the troubadour gaily touched
his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the
weird, melancholy, minor-keyed canciones that he
had learned from the Mexican sheep herders and
vaqueros. One, in particular, charmed and soothed
the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song
of the sheep herders, beginning: "Hutte, huile,

10 Sixes and Sevens

palomita," which being translated means, cc FIj, fly,
little dove." Sam sang it for old man Ellison many
times that evening.

The troubadour stayed on at the old man's ranch.
There was peace and quiet and appreciation there,
such as he had not found in the noisy camps of the
cattle kings. No audience in the world could have
crowned the work of poet, musician, or artist with
more worshipful and unflagging approval than that
bestowed upon his efforts by old man Ellison. No
visit by a royal personage to a humble woodchopper
or peasant could have been received with more flatter-
ing thankfulness and joy.

On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the
hackberry trees Sam Galloway passed the greater
part of his time. There he rolled his brown paper
cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch
afforded, and added to his repertoire of improvisa-
tions that he played so expertly on his guitar. To him,
as a slave ministering to a great lord, the Kiowa
brought cool water from the red jar hanging under the
brush shelter, and food when he called for it. The
prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly ; mocking-birds at
morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled the
sweet melodies of his lyre ; a perfumed stillness seemed
to fill all his world. While old man Ellison was potter-
ing among his flocks of sheep on his mile-an-hour pony,
and while the Kiowa took his siesta in the burning

The Last of the Troubadours 11

sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam would lie
on his cot thinking what a happy world he lived in,
and how kind it is to the ones whose mission in life
it is to give entertainment and pleasure. Here he
had food and lodging as good as he had ever longed
for; absolute immunity from care or exertion or
strife; an endless welcome, and a host whose delight
at the sixteenth repetition of a song or a story was as
keen as at its initial giving. Was there ever a trouba-
dour of old who struck upon as ro3 r al a castle in his
wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon
his blessings, little brown cottontails would shyly
frolic through the yard ; a covey of white-topknotted
blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards
away; a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantulas,
Would hop upon the fence and salute him with sweeping
flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse
pasture the pony with the Dantesque face grew fat
and almost smiling. The troubadour was at the end
of his wanderings.

Old man Ellison was his own vaciero. ~ That means
that he supplied his sheep camps with wood, water,
and rations by his own labours instead of hiring a
vaciero. On small ranches it is often done.

One morning he started for the camp of Incarnaci6n
Felipe dc la Cruz y Monto Piedras (one of his sheep
herders) with the week's usual rations of brown beans,
coffee, meal, and sugar. Two miles away on the trail

12 Sixes and Sevens

from old Fort Ewing he met, face to face, a terrible
being called King James, mounted on a fiery, pranc-
ing, Kentucky-bred horse.

King James's real name was James King; but
people reversed it because it seemed to fit him better,
and also because it seemed to please his majesty.
King James was the biggest cattleman between the
Alamo plaza in San Antone and Bill Hopper's saloon
in Brownsville. Also he was the loudest and most
offensive bully and braggart and bad man in southwest
Texas. And he always made good whenever he
bragged; and the more noise he made the more dan-
gerous he was. In the story papers it is always the
quiet, mild-mannered man with light blue eyes and
a low voice who turns out to be really dangerous;
but in real life and in this story such is not the case.
Give me my choice between assaulting a large, loud-
mouthed rough-houser and an inoffensive stranger
with blue eyes sitting quietly in a corner, and you will
see something doing in the corner every time.

King James, as 9 1 intended to say earlier, was a
fierce, two-hundred-pound, sunburned, blond man,
as pink as an October strawberry, and with two hori-
zontal slits under shaggy red eyebrows for eyes. On
that day he wore a flannel shirt that was tan-coloured,
with the exception of certain large areas which were
darkened by transudations due to the summer sun.
There seemed to be oth^r clothing and garnishings

The Last of the Troubadours 18

about him, such as brown duck trousers stuffed into
immense boots, and red handkerchiefs and revolvers;
and a shotgun laid across his saddle and a leather
belt with millions of cartridges shining in it — but
your mind skidded off such accessories; what held
your gaze was just the two little horizontal slits that
he used for eves.

This was the man that old man Ellison met on the
trail ; and when you count up in the baron's favour
that he was sixty-five and weighed ninety-eight
pounds and had heard of King James's record and
that he (the baron) had a hankering for the vita
simplex and had no gun with him and wouldn't have
used it if he had, you can't censure him if I tell you
that the smiles with which the troubadour had filled
his wrinkles went out of them and left them plain
wrinkles again. But he was not the kind of baron
that flies from danger. He reined in the mile-an-hour
pony (no difficult feat), and saluted the formidable
monarch.

King James expressed himself with royal directness.

"You're that old snoozer that's running sheep on
this range, ain't you?" said he. "What right have
you got to do it? Do you own any land, or lease
any?"

"I have two sections leased from the state," said
old man Ellison, mildly.

"Not by no means you haven't," said King James.

14 Sixes and Sevens

"Your lease expired yesterday ; and I had a man at
the land office on the minute to take it up. You
don't control a foot of grass in Texas. You sheep
men have got to git. Your time's up. It's a cattle
country, and there ain't any room in it for snoozers.
This range you've got your sheep on is mine. I'm
putting up a wire fence, forty by sixty miles; and if
there's a sheep inside of it when it's done it'll be a
dead one. I'll give you a week to move yours away.
If they ain't gone by then, I'll send six men over here
with Winchesters to make mutton out of the whole
lot. And if I find you here at the same time this is
what you'll get."

King James patted the breech of his shot-gun
warningly.

Old man Ellison rode on to the camp of Incarnaci6n.
He sighed many times, and the wrinkles in his face
grew deeper. Humours that the old order was about
to change had reached him before. The end of Free
Grass was in sight. Other troubles, too, had been
accumulating upon his shoulders. His flocks were
decreasing instead of growing; the price of wool
was declining at every clip; even Bradshaw, the
storekeeper at Frio City, at whose store he bought
his ranch supplies, was dunning him for his last six
months 9 bill and threatening to cut him off. And
so this last greatest calamity suddenly dealt out to
him by the terrible King James was a crusher.

The Last of the Troubadours 15

When the old man got back to the ranch at sunset
he found Sam Galloway lying on his cot, propped
against a roll of blankets and wool sacks, fingering
his guitar.

"Hello, Uncle Ben," the troubadour called, cheer-
fully. "You rolled in early this evening. I been
trying a new twist on the Spanish Fandango to-day.
I just about got it. Here's how she goes — listen."

"That's fine, that's mighty fine," said old man
Ellison, sitting on the kitchen step and rubbing his
white, Scotch-terrier whiskers. "I reckon you've got
all the musicians beat east and west, Sam, as far as the
roads are cut out."

"Oh, I don't know," said Sam, reflectively. "But
I certainly do get there on variations. I guess I
can handle anything in five flats about as well as any
of 'em. But you look kind of fagged out, Uncle
Ben — ain't you feeling right well this evening?"

"Little tired ; that's all, Sam. If you ain't played
yourself out, let's have that Mexican piece that
starts off with: 'Huile, huile, palomita.' It seems
that that song always kind of soothes and comforts
me after I've been riding far or anything bothers me."

"Why, seguramente, tenor* 9 said Sam. "HI hit
her up for you as often as you like. And before I
forget about it, Uncle Ben, you want to jerk Brad-
shaw up about them last hams he sent us. They're
just a little bit strong."

16 Sixes and Sevens

A man sixty-five years old, living on a sheep ranch
and beset by a complication of disasters, cannot
successfully and continuously dissemble. Moreover,
a troubadour has eyes quick to sec unhappiness in
others around him — because it disturbs his own ease.
So, on the next day, Sam again questioned the old
man about his air of sadness and abstraction. Then
old man Ellison told him the story of King James's
threats and orders and that pale melancholy and red
ruin appeared to have marked him for their own.
The troubadour took the news thoughtfully. He
had heard much about King James.

On the third day of the seven days of grace allowed
him by the autocrat of the range, old man Ellison
drove his buckboard to Frio City to fetch some neces-
sary supplies for the ranch. Bradshaw was hard
but not implacable. He divided the old man's order
by two, and let him have a little more time. One
article secured was a new, fine ham for the pleasure
of the troubadour.

Five miles out of Frio City on his way home the
old man met King James riding into town. His
majesty could never look anything but fierce and
menacing, but to-day his slits of eyes appeared to be
a little wider than they usually were.

"Good day," said the king, gruffly. "I've been
wanting to see you. I hear it said by a cowman
from Sandy yesterday that you was from Jackson

The Last of the Troubadours 17

County, Mississippi, originally. I want to know if
that's a fact."

"Born there," said old man Ellison, "and raised
there till I was twenty-one."

"This man says," went on King James, "that he
thinks you was related to the Jackson County
Reeveses. Was he right?"

"Aunt Caroline Reeves," said the old man, "was
my half-sister."

"She was my aunt," said King James. "I run
away from home when I was sixteen. Now, let's
re-talk over some things that we discussed a few days
ago. They call me a bad man; and they're only
half right. There's plenty of room in my pasture
for your bunch of sheep and their increase for a long
time to come. Aunt Caroline used to cut out sheep
in cake dough and bake 'em for me. You keep your
sheep where they are, and use all the range you
want. How's your finances ?"

The old man related his woes in detail, dignifiedly,
with restraint and candour.

"She used to smuggle extra grub into my school
basket — I'm speaking of Aunt Caroline," said King
James. "I'm going over to Frio City to-day, and
I'll ride back by your ranch to-morrow. I'll draw
$2,000 out of the bank there and bring it over to you ;
and I'll tell Bradshaw to let you have everything you
want on credit. You are bound to have heard the

18 Sixes and Sevens

old saying at home, that the Jackson County Reeveses
and Kings would stick closer by each other than
chestnut burrs. Well, I'm a King yet whenever I
run across a Reeves* So you look out for me along
about sundown to-morrow, and don't worry about
nothing. Shouldn't wonder if the dry spell don't kill
out the young grass."

Old man Ellison drove happily ranchward. Once
more the smiles filled out his wrinkles. Very suddenly,
by the magic of kinship and the good that lies some-
where in all hearts, his troubles had been removed.

On reaching the ranch he found that Sam Galloway
was not there. His guitar hung by its buckskin
string to a hackberry limb, moaning as the gulf
breeze blew across its masterless strings.

The Kiowa endeavoured to explain.

"Sam, he catch pony," said he, "and say he ride
to Frio City. What for no can damn sabe. Say
he come back to-night. Maybe so. That all."

As the first stars came out the troubadour rode
back to his haven. He pastured his pony and went
into the house, his spurs jingling martially.

Old man Ellison sat at the kitchen table, having
a tin cup of bef ore-supper coffee. He look contented
and pleased.

"Hello, Sam," said he, "I'm darned glad to see ye
back. I don't know how I managed to get along on
this ranch, anyhow, before ye dropped in to cheei

The Last of the Troubadours 19

things up. I'll bet ye've been skylarking around
with some of them Frio City gals, now, that's kept
ye so late."

And then old man Ellison took another look at
Sam's face and saw that the minstrel had changed
to the man of action.

And while Sam is unbuckling from his waist old
man Ellison's six-shooter, that the latter had left
behind when he drove to town, we may well pause
to remark that anywhere and whenever a troubadour
lays down the guitar and takes up the sword trouble
is sure to follow. It is not the expert thrust of Athos
nor the cold skill of Aramis nor the iron wrist of
Porthos that we have to fear — it is the Gascon's
fury — the wild and unacademic attack of the trouba-
dour — the sword of D'Artagnan.

"I done it," said Sam. "I went over to Frio City
to do it. I couldn't let him put the skibunk on you,
Uncle Ben. I met him in Summers's saloon. I
knowed what to do. I said a few things to him that
nobody else heard. He reached for his gun first —
half a dozen fellows saw him do it — but I got mine
unlimbered first. Three doses I gave* him — right
around the lungs, and a saucer could have covered
up all of 'em. He won't bother you no more."

'This — is — King — James — you speak — of ?"
asked old man Ellison, while he sipped his coffee.

"You bet it was. And they took me before the

20 Sires and Sevens

county judge; and the witnesses what saw him draw
his gun first was all there. Well, of course, they put
me under $300 bond to appear before the court, but
there was four or five boys on the spot ready to sign
the bail. He won't bother you no more, Uncle Ben.
You ought to have seen how close them bullet holed
was together. I reckon playing a guitar as much as
I do must kind of limber a fellow's trigger finger up
a little, don't you think, Uncle Ben?"

Then there was a little silence in the castle except
for the spluttering of a venison steak that the Kiowa
was cooking.

"Sam," said old man Ellison, stroking his white
whiskers with a tremulous hand, "would you mind
getting the guitar and playing that 'Huile, huile,
palomita' piece once or twice? It alwaj's seems to
be kind of soothing and comforting when a man's
tired and fagged out."

There is no more to be said, except that the title
of the story is wrong. It should have been called
"The Last of the Barons." There never will be an
end to the troubadours; and now and then it does
seem that the jingle of their guitars will drown the
sound of the muffled blows of the pickaxes and trip
hammers of all the Workers in the world.

THE SLEUTHS

IN THE Big City a man will disappear with the
suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle
that is blown out. All the agencies of inquisition —
the hounds of the trail, the sleuths of the city's laby-
rinths, the closet detectives of theory and induction
— will be invoked to the search. Most often the
man's face will be seen no more. Sometimes he will
reappear in Sheboygan or in the wilds of Terre Haute,
calling himself one of the synonyms of "Smith," and
without memory of events up to a certain time, in-
cluding his grocer's bill. Sometimes it will be found,
After dragging the rivers, and polling the restaurants
to see if he may be waiting for a well-done sirloin,
that he has moved next door.

This snuffing out of a human being like the erasure
of a chalk man from a blackboard is one of the most
impressive themes in dramaturgy.

The case of Mary Snyder, in point, should not be
without interest.

A man of middle age, of the name of Meeks, came

from the West to New York to find his sister, Mrs.

22 Sixes and Sevens

Mary Snyder, a widow, aged fifty-two, who had been
living for a year in a tenement house in a crowded
neighbourhood.

At her address he was told that Mary Snyder had
moved away longer than a month before. No one
could tell him her new address.

On coming out Mr. Meeks addressed a policeman
who was standing on the corner, and explained his
dilemma.

"My sister is very poor," he said, "and I am
anxious to find her. I have recently made quite a
lot of money in a lead mine, and I want her to share my
prosperity. There is no use in advertising her, be-
cause she cannot read."

The policeman pulled his moustache and looked
so thoughtful and mighty that Meeks could almost
feel the joyful tears of his sister Mary dropping upon
his bright blue tic.

"You go down in the Canal Street neighbourhood,"
said the policeman, "and get a job drivin' the biggest
dray you can find. There's old women always gettin'
knocked over hy drays down there. You might see
'er among 'em. If you don't want to do that you
better go 'round to headquarters and get 'em to put
a fly cop onto the dame."

At police headquarters, Meeks received ready
assistance. A general alarm was sent out, and copies
of a photograph of Mary Snyder that her brother had

The Sleuths 28

were distributed among the stations. In Mulberry
Street the chief assigned Detective Mullins to the case.

The detective took Meeks aside and said :

"This is not a very difficult case to unravel. Shave
off your whiskers, fill your pockets with good cigars,
and meet me in the cafe of the Waldorf at three
o'clock this afternoon."

Meeks obeyed. He found Mullins there. They
had a bottle of wine, while the detective asked ques-
tions concerning the missing woman.

"Now," said Mullins, "New York is a big city,
but we've got the detective business systematized.
There are two waj's we can go about finding your
sister. We will try one of 'em first. You say she's
fifty-two?"

"A little past," said Meeks.

The detective conducted the Westerner to a branch
advertising office of one of the largest dailies. There
he wrote the following "ad" and submitted it to
Meeks :

"Wanted, at once — one hundred attractive chorus
girls for a new musical comedy. Apply all day at
No. Broadway."

Meeks was indignant.

"My sister," said he, "is a poor, hard-working,
elderly woman. I do not see what aid an advertise-
ment of this kind would be toward finding her."

"All right," said the detective. "I guess you don't

24 Sires and Sevens

know New York. But if you've got a grouch against
this scheme we'll try the other one. It's a sure thing.
But it'll cost you more."

"Never mind the expense," said Mecks ; "we'll try
it."

The sleuth led him back to the Waldorf. "Engage
a couple of bedrooms and a parlour," he advised,
"and let's go up."

This was done, and the two were shown to a superb
suite on the fourth floor. Meeks looked puzzled.
The detective sank into a velvet armchair, and pulled
out his cigar case.

"I forgot to suggest, old man," he said, "that you
should have taken the rooms by the month. They
wouldn't have stuck you so much for 'em."

"By the month !" exclaimed Meeks. "What do you
mean?"

"Oh, it'll take time to work the game this way.
I told you it would cost you more. We'll have to
wait till spring. There'll be a new city directory out
then. Very likely your sister's name and address
will be in it."

Meeks rid himself of the city detective at once.
On the next day some one advised him to consult
Shamrock Jolnes, New York's famous private detec-
tive, who demanded fabulous fees, but performed
miracles in the way of solving mysteries and crimes.

After waiting for two hours in the anteroom of

The Sleuths 25

the great detective's apartment, Mecks was shown into
his presence. Jolnes sat in a purple dressing-gown at
an inlaid ivory chess table, with a magazine before
him, trying to solve the mystery of "They." The fa-
mous sleuth's tiiin, intellectual face, piercing eyes, and
rate per word are too well known to need description.

Mecks set forth his errand. "My fee, if successful,
will be $500," said Shamrock Jolnes.

Meeks bowed his agreement to the price.

"I will undertake your case, Mr. Meeks," said
Jolnes, finally. "The disappearance of people in this
city has always been an interesting problem to me. I
remember a case that I brought to a successful out-
come a year ago. A family bearing the name of Clark
disappeared suddenly from a small flat in which they
were living. I watched the flat building for two
months for a clue. One day it struck me that a cer-
tain milkman and a grocer's boy always walked back-
ward when they carried their wares upstairs. Follow-
ing out by induction the idea that this observation
gave me, I at once located the missing family. They
had moved into the flat across the hall and changed
their name to Kralc."

Shamrock Jolnes and his client went to the tene-
ment house where Mary Snyder had lived, and the
detective demanded to be shown the room in which
she had lived. It had been occupied by no tenant
since her disappearance.

96 Sixes and Sevens

The room was small, dingy, and poorij furnished.
Meeks seated himself dejectedly on a broken chair,
while the great detective searched the walls and floor
and the few sticks of old, rickety furniture for a clue.

At the end of half an hour Jolnes had collected
a few seemingly unintelligible articles — a cheap
black hat pin, a piece torn off a theatre programme,
and the end of a small torn card on which was the
word "left" and the characters "C 12."

Shamrock Jolnes leaned against the mantel for ten
minutes, with his head resting upon his hand, and
an absorbed look upon his intellectual face. At the
end of that time he exclaimed, with animation:

"Come, Mr. Meeks ; the problem is solved. I can
take you directly to the house where your sister is
living. And you may have no fears concerning her
welfare, for she is amply provided with funds — for
the present at least."

Meeks felt joy and wonder in equal proportions.

"How did you manage it?" he asked, with admira-
tion in his tones.

Perhaps Jolnes's only weakness was a professional
pride in his wonderful achievements in induction.
He was ever ready to astound and charm his listeners
by describing his methods.

"By elimination," said Jolnes, spreading his clues
upon a little table, "I got rid of certain parts of the
city to which Mrs. Snyder might have removed. You

The Sleuths 87

see this hatpin? That eliminates Brooklyn. No
woman attempts to board a car at the Brooklyn
Bridge without being sure that she carries a hatpin
with which to fight her way into a seat. And now I
will demonstrate to you that she could not have gone
to Harlem. Behind this door are two hooks in the
wall. Upon one of these Mrs. Snyder has hung her
bonnet, and upon the other her shawl. You will
observe that the bottom of the hanging shawl has
gradually made a soiled streak against the plastered
wall. The mark is clean-cut, proving that there is
no fringe on the shawl. Now, was there ever a case
where a middle-aged woman, wearing a shawl, boarded
a Harlem train without there being a fringe on the
shawl to catch in the gate and delay the passengers
behind her? So we eliminate Harlem.

"Therefore I conclude that Mrs. Snyder has not
moved very far away. On this torn piece of card
you see the word "Left," the letter "C," and the
number "12." Now, I happen to know that No. 12
Avenue C is a first-class boarding house, far beyond
your sister's means — as we suppose. But then I
find this piece of a theatre programme, crumpled into
an odd shape. What meaning does it convey ? None
to you, very likely, Mr. Meeks; but it is eloquent to
one whose habits and training take cognizance of the
smallest things.

'You have told me that your sister was a scrub

««"*7\

28 Sixes and Sevens

woman. She scrubbed the floors of offices and hall-
ways. Let us assume that she procured such work to
perform in a theatre. Where is valuable jewellery
lost the oftencst, Mr. Meeks? In the theatres, of
course. Look at that piece of programme, Mr.
Meeks. Observe the round impression in it. It has
been wrapped around a ring — perhaps a ring of
great value. Mrs. Snyder found the ring while at
work in the theatre. She hastily tore off a piece of
a programme, wrapped the ring carefully, and thrust
it into her bosom. The next day she disposed of it,
and with her increased means, looked about her for a
more comfortable place in which to live. When I
reach thus far in the chain I see nothing impossible
about No. 12 Avenue C. It is there we will find your
sister, Mr. Meeks."

Shamrock Jolnes concluded his convincing speech
with the smile of a successful artist. Meeks's admi-
ration was too great for words. Together they went
to No. 12 Avenue C. It was an old-fashioned brown-
stone house in a prosperous and respectable neigh-
bourhood.

They rang the bell, and on inquiring were told
that no Mrs. Snyder was known there, and that not
within six months had a new occupant come to the
house.

W T hen they reached the sidewalk again, Meeks

The Sleuths 29

examined the clues which he had brought away from
his sister's <>!d room.

"I am no detective," he remarked to Jolnes as he
raised the piece of theatre programme to his nose,
"but it seems to me that instead of a ring having been
wrapped in this paper it was one of those round
peppermint drops. And this piece with the address
on it looks to me like the end of a seat coupon — No»
12, row C, left aisle."

Shamrock Jolnca nad a far-away look in his eves.

"I think you would do well to consult Juggins."
said he.

"Who is Juggins?" asked Mceks.

"He is the leader," said Jolnes, "of a new modern
school of detectives. Their methods are different
from ours, but it is said that Juggins has solved some
extremely puzzling cases. I will take you to him."

They found the greater Juggins in his office. He
was a small man with light hair, deeply absorbed in
reading one of the bourgeois works of Nathaniel
Hawthorne.

The two great detectives of different schools shook
hands with ceremonv, and Mocks was introduced.

"State the facts," said Juggins, going on with his
reading.

When Meeks ceased, the greater one closed but
book and said:

BO Sixes and Sevens

"Do I understand that your sister is fifty-two
years of age, with a large mole on the side of her nose,
and that she is a very poor widow, making a scanty
living by scrubbing, and with a very homely face and
figure?"

"That describes her exactly," admitted Mecks.
Juggins rose and put on his hat.

"In fifteen minutes," he said, "I will return, bring-
ing you her present address."

Shamrock Jolnes turned pale, but forced a smile.

Within the specified time Juggins returned and
jpansultcd a little slip of paper held in his hand.

"Your sister, Mary Snyder," he announced calmly,
*'will be found at No. 162 Chilton street. She is
living in the back hall bedroom, five flights up. The
house is only four blocks from here," he continued,
addressing Sleeks. "Suppose you go and verify the
statement and then return here. Mr. Jolnes will
await you, I dare say."

Meeks hurried away. In twenty minutes he was
]back again, with a beaming face.

"She is there and well!" he crisd. "Name your
fee!"

"Two dollars," said Juggins.

When Meeks had settled his bill and departed,
Shamrock Jolnes stood with his hat in his hand before
Juggins.

"If it would not be asking too much," he stammered

The Sleuths 31

— "if you would favour me so far — would you object

to "

"Certainly not," said Juggins pleasantly. "I will
tell you how I did it. You remember the description
of Mrs. Snyder? Did you ever know a woman like
that who wasn't paying weekly instalments on an
enlarged crayon portrait of herself? The biggest
factory of that kind in the country is just around
the corner. I went there and got her address off the
books. That's all."

WITCHES' LOAVES

MlSS MARTHA MEACHAM kept the little bakery
on the corner (the one where you go up three steps,
and the bell tinkles when you open the door).

Miss Martha was forty, her bank-book showed a
credit of two thousand dollars, and she possessed
two false teeth and a sympathetic heart. Many
people have married whose chances to do so were
much inferior to Miss Martha's.

Two or three times a week a customer came in in
whom she began to take an interest. lie was a middle-
aged man, wearing spectacles and a brown beard
trimmed to a careful point.

He spoke English with a strong German accent.
His clothes were worn and darned in places, and
wrinkled and baggy in others. But he looked neat,
and had very good manners.

He always bought two loaves of stale bread. Fresh
bread was five cents a loaf. Stale ones were two for
five. Never did he call for anything but stale bread.

Once Miss Martha saw a red and brown stain on

lug fingers. She was sure then that he was an artist

Witches' Loaves 33

and very poor. No doubt he lived in a garret, where
he painted pictures and ate stale bread and thought
of the good things to eat in Miss Martha's bakery.

Often when Miss Martha sat down to her chops and
light rolls and jam and tea she would sigh, and wish
that the gentle-mannered artist might share her tasty
meal instead of eating his dry crust in that draughty
attic. Miss Martha's heart, as you have been told,
was a sympathetic one.

In order to test her theory as to his occupation,
she brought from her room one day a painting that
she had bought at a sale, and set it against the shelves
behind the bread counter.

It was a Venetian scene. A splendid marble
palazzio (so it said on the picture) stood in the fore-
ground — or rather forcwater. For the rest there
were gondolas (with the lady trailing her hand in the
water), clouds, sky, and chiaro-oscuro in plenty. No
artist could fail to notice it.

Two days afterward the customer came in.

"Two loafs of stale bread, if you blease.

"You haf here a fine bicture, madamc," he said
while she was wrapping up the bread.

"Yes?" sa3's Miss Martha, revelling in her own
cunning. "I do so admire art and" (no, it would not
do to say "artists" thus early) "and paintings," she
substituted. "You think it is a good picture?"

"Dcr balace," said the customer, "is not in good

04 Sixes and Sevens

drawing. Der bairspective of it is not true. Goot
morning, madame."

He took his bread, bowed, and hurried out.

Yes, lie must be an artist. Miss Martha took the
picture back to her room.

How gentle and kindly his eyes shone behind his
spectacles ! What a broad brow he had ! To be able
to judge perspective at a glance — and to live on stale
bread! But genius often has to struggle before it
is recognized.

What a thing it would be for art and perspective
if genius were backed by two thousand dollars in bank,
a bakery, and a sympathetic heart to — But these
were day-dreams, Miss Martha.

Often now when he came he would chat for a while
across the showcase. He seemed to crave Miss Mar-
tha's cheerful words.

He kept on buying stale bread. Never a cake,
never a pie, never one of her delicious Sally Lunns.

She thought he began to look thinner and dis-
couraged. Her heart ached to add something good
to eat to his meagre purchase, but her courage failed
at the act. She did not dare affront him. She
knew the pride of artists.

Miss Martha took to wearing her blue-dotted silk
waist behind the counter. In the back room she
cooked a mysterious compound of quince seeds and
borax. Ever so many people use it for the complexion.

Witches 1 Loaves 33

One day the customer came in as usual, laid his
nickel on the showcase, and called for his stale loaves.
While Miss Martha was reaching for them there was
a great tooting and clanging, and a fire-engine came
lumbering past.

The customer hurried to the door to look, as any
one will. Suddenly inspired, Miss Martha seized
the opportunity.

On the bottom shelf behind the counter was a pound
of fresh butter that the dairyman had left ten minutts
before. With a bread knife Miss Martha made 4
deep slash in each of the stale loaves, inserted a
generous quantity of butter, and pressed the loaves
tight again.

When the customer turned once more she was tying
the paper around them.

When he had gone, after an unusually pleasant
little chat, Miss Martha smiled to herself, but not
without a slight fluttering of the heart.

Had she been too bold? Would he take offense?
But surely not. There was no language of edible v
Butter was no emblem of unmaidenly forwardness.

For a long time that day her mind dwelt on th%
subject. She imagined the scene when he should dis-
cover her little deception.

He would lay down his brushes and palette. There
would stand his easel with the picture he was painting
in which the perspective was beyond criticism.

86 Sires and Sevens

He would prepare for his luncheon of dry bre&S
and water. He would slice into a loaf — ah !

Miss Martha blushed. Would he think of the hand
that placed it there as he ate? Would he

The front door bell jangled viciously. Somebody
was coming in, making a great deal of noise.

Miss Martha hurried to the front. Two men were
there. One was a young man smoking a pipe — a
man she had never seen before. The other was her
artist.

His face was very red, his hat was on the back
of his head, his hair was wildly rumpled. He clinched
his two fists and shook them ferociously at Miss
Martha. At Miss Martha.

"Dummkopf!" he shouted with extreme loudness;
and then "Tauscndonfcr!" or something like it in
German.

The young man tried to draw him away.

"I vill not go," he said angrily, "else I shall told
her."

He made a bass drum of Miss Martha's counter.

"You haf shpoilt me," he cried, his blue eyes blazing
behind his spectacles. "I vill tell you. You vas von
meddingsome old cat!"

Miss Martha leaned weakly against the shelve!
and laid one hand on her blue-dotted silk waist. The
young man took the other by the collar.

"Come on," he said, "you've said enough." He

Witches' Loaves 37

dragged the angry one out at the door to the sidewalk,
and then came back.

"Guess you ought to be told, ma'am," he said,
"what the row is about. That's Blumbcrger. He's
an architectural draftsman. I work in the same
office with him.

"He's been working hard for three months draw-
ing a plan for a new city Wall. It was a prize
competition. He finished inking the lines yesterday.
You know, a draftsman always makes his drawing
in pencil first. When it's done he rubs out the pencil
lines with handfuls of stale bread crumbs. That's
better than India rubber.

"Blumbergcr's been buying the bread here. Well,
to-day — well, you know, ma'am, that butter isn't —
well, BlumKrger's plan isn't good for anything now
except to cut up into railroad sandwiches."

Miss Martha went into the back room. She took
off the blue-dotted silk waist and put on the old brown
serge she used to wear. Then she poured the quince
seed and borax mixture out of the window into the
ash can.

IV
THE PRIDE OF THE CITIES

SAID Mr. Kipling, "The cities are full of pride,
challenging each to each." Even so.

New York was empty. Two hundred thousand
of its people were away for the summer. Three
million eight hundred thousand remained as care-
takers and to pay the bills of the absentees. But
the two hundred thousand are an expensive lot.

The New Yorker sat at a roof-garden table, ingest-
ing solace through a straw. His panama lay upon
a chair. The July audience was scattered among
vacant seats as widely as outfielders when the cham-
pion batter steps to the plate. Vaudeville happened
at intervals. The breeze was cool from the bay;
around and above — everywhere except on the stage
— were stars. Glimpses were tfj be had of waiters,
always disappearing, like startled chamois. Prudent
visitors who had ordered refreshments by 'phone in
the morning were now being served. The New Yorker
was aware of certain drawbacks to his comfort, but
content beamed softly from his rimless eye-glasses.

His family was out of town. The drinks were warm;

The Pride of the Cities 39

the ballet was suffering from lack of both tune and
talcum — but his family would not return until Sep-
tember.

Then up into the garden stumbled the man from
Topaz City, Nevada. The gloom of the solitary
sight-seer enwrapped him. Bereft of joy through
loneliness, he stalked with a widower's face through the
halls of pleasure. Thirst for human companionship
possessed him as he panted in the metropolitan
draught. Straight to the New Yorker's table he
steered.

The New Yorker, disarmed and made reckless by
the lawless atmosphere of a roof garden, decided upon
utter abandonment of his life's traditions. He re-
solved to shatter with one rash, dare-devil, impulsive,
hair-brained act the conventions that had hitherto
been woven into his existence. Carrying out this
radical and precipitous inspiration ho nodded slightly
to the stranger as he drew nearer the table.

The next moment found the man from Topaz City
in the list of the New Yorker's closest friends. He
took a chair at the *able, he gathered two others for
his feet, he tossed his broad-brimmed hat upon a
fourth, and told his life's history to his new-found
pard.

The New Yorker warmed a little, as an apartment-
house furnace warms when the strawberry season
begins. A waiter who came within hail in an un-

40 Sixes and Sevens

guarded moment was captured and paroled on an
errand to the Doctor Wiley experimental station*
The ballet was now in the midst of a musical vagary,
and danced upon the stage programmed as Bolivian
peasants, clothed in some portions of its anatomy as
Norwegian fisher maidens, in others as ladies-in-wait-
ing of Marie Antoinette, historically denuded in other
portions so as to represent sea nymphs, and present-
ing the tout ensemble of a social club of Central Park
West housemaids at a fish fry.

"Been in the city long?" inquired the New Yorker,
getting ready the exact tip against the waiter's com-
ing with large change from the bill.

"Me?" said the man from Topaz City. "Four
days. Never in Topaz City, was you?"

"I !" said the New Yorker. "I was never farther
west than Eighth Avenue. I had a brother who died
on Ninth, but I met the cortege at Eighth. There
was a bunch of violets on the hearse, and the under-
taker mentioned the incident to avoid mistake. I
cannot say that I am familiar with the West."

"Topaz City," said the man who occupied four
chairs, "is one of the finest towns in the world."

"I presume that you have seen the sights of the
metropolis," said the New Yorker. "Eour days is
not a sufficient length of time in which to view even
our most salient points of interests, but one can pos-
sibly form a general impression. Our architectural

The Pride of the Cities 41

supremacy is what generally strikes visitors to our
city most forcibly. Of course you have seen our
Flatiron Building. It is considered "

"Saw it," said the man from Topaz City. "But
you ought to come out our way. It's mountainous,
you know, and the ladies all wear short skirts for
climbing and "

"Excuse me," said the New Yorker, "but that isn't
exactly the point. New York must be c wonderful
revelation to a visitor from the West. Now, as to
our hotels "

"Say," said the man from Topaz City, "that re-
minds me — there were sixteen stage robbers shot
last year within twenty miles of "

"I was speaking of hotels," said the New Yorker.
'"We lead Europe in that respect. And as far as
our leisure class is concerned we are far "

"Oh, I don't know," interrupted the man from To-
paz City. "There were twelve tramps in our jail
when I left home. I guess New York isn't so *

"Beg pardon, you seem to misapprehend the idea.
Of course, you visited the Stock Exchange and Wall
Street, where the "

"Oh, yes," said the man from Topaz City, as he
lighted a Pennsylvania stogie, "and I want to tell
you that we've got the finest town marshal west of
the Rockies. Bill Rainer he took in five pickpockets
out of the crowd when Red Nose Thompson laid the

42 Sixes and Sevens

corner-stone of his new saloon. Topaz City don't
allow "

"Have another Rhine wine and seltzer," suggested
the New Yorker. "I've never been West, as I said;
but there can't be any place out there to compare
with New York. As to the claims of Chicago I "

"One man," said the Topazitc — "one man only
has been murdered and robbed in Topaz City in the
last three "

"Oh, I know what Chicago is," interposed the New
Yorker. "Have you been up Fifth Avenue to see
the magnificent residences of our mil "

"Seen 'em all. You ought to know Keub Stegall,
the assessor of Topaz. When old man Tilbury, that
owns the only two-stor}' house in town, tried to swear
his taxes from $6,000 down to $450.75, Reub buckled
on his forty-five and went down to sec "

"Yes, yes, but speaking of our great city — one of
its greatest features is our superb police department.
There is no body of men in the world that can equal
it for "

"That waiter gets around like a Langley flying ma-
chine," remarked the man from Topaz City, thirstily.
"We've got men in our town, too, worth $400,000.
There's old Bill Withers and Colonel Metcalf
and "

"Have 3'ou seen Broadway at night?" asked the
New Yorker, courteously. "There are few streets

The Pride of the Cities 43

in the world that can compare with it. When the
electrics are shining and the pavements are alive
with two hurrying streams of elegantly clothed men
and beautiful women attired in the costliest costumes
that wind in and out in a close maze of expen-
sively "

"Never knew but one case in Topaz City," said
the man from the West. "Jim Bailey, our mayor,
had his watch and chain and $235 in cash taken from
his pocket while "

"That's another matter," said the New Yorker.
"While you are in our city you should avail yourself
of every opportunity to see its wonders. Our rapid
transit system "

"If you was out in Topaz," broke in the man from
there, "I could show you a whole cemetery full of
people that got killed accidentally. Talking about
mangling folks up ! why, when Berry Rogers turned
loose that old double-barrelled shot-gun of his loaded
with slugs at anybody "

"Here, waiter I" called the New Yorker. "Two
more of the same. It is acknowledged by every one
that our city is the centre of art, and literature,
and learning. Take, for instance, our after-dinner
speakers. Where else in the country would you find
such wit and eloquence as emanate from Depew and

Ford, and "

If you take the papers," interrupted the West-

44 Sixes and Sevens

crner, "you must have read of Pete Webster's daugh-
ter. The Websters live two blocks north of the court-
house in Topaz City. Miss Tillie Webster, she slept
forty days and nights without waking up. The doc-
tors said that "

"Pass the matches, please," said the New Yorker.
"Have you observed the expedition with which new
buildings are being run up in New York? Improved
inventions in steel framework and "

"I noticed," said the Nevadian, "that the statistics
of Topaz City showed only one carpenter crushed by
falling timbers last 3'ear and he was caught in a
cyclone."

"They abuse our sky line," continued the New
Yorker, "and it is likely that we are not yet artistic
in the construction of our buildings. But I can safely
assert that we bad in pictorial and decorative art.
In some of our houses can be found masterpieces in
the way of paintings and scupturc. One who has the
entree to our best galleries will find "

"Lack up," exclaimed the man from Topaz City.
"There was a game last month in our town in which
$90,000 changed hands on a pair of "

"Ta-romt-tara !" went the orchestra. The stage
curtain, blushing pink at the name "Asbestos" in-
scribed upon it, came down with a slow midsummer
movement. The audience trickled leisurely down the
elevator and stairs.

The Pride of the Cities 45

On the sidewalk below, the New Yorker and the
man from Topaz City shook hands with alcoholic
gravity. The elevated crashed raucously, surface
cars hummed and clanged, cabmen swore, newsboys
shrieked, wheels clattered ear-piercingly. The New
Yorker conceived a happy thought, with which he
aspired to clinch the pre-eminence of his city.

"You must admit," said he, "that in the way of
noise New York is far ahead of any other "

"Back to the everglades !" said the man from Topaz
City. "In 1900, when Sousa's band and the repeating
candidate were in our town you couldn't "

The rattle of an express waf on drowned the rest of
the words.

HOLDING UP A TRAIN

Not*. The man who told me these things was for several years ail
outlaw in the Southwest and a follower of the pursuit he so frankly
describes. His description of the modus operandi should prove interest-
ing, his counsel of value to the potential passenger in some future "hold-
tip," while his estimate of the pleasures of train robbing will hardly in-
duce any one to adopt it as a profession. I give the story in almost
exactly his own words. O. H.

JVlOST people would say, if their opinion was asked
for, that holding up a train would be a hard job.
Well, it isn't ; it's easy. I have contributed some to
the uneasiness of railroads and the insomnia of ex-
press companies, and the most trouble I ever had
about a hold-up was in being swindled by unscrupu-
lous people while spending the money I got. The
danger wasn't anything to speak of, and we didn't
mind the trouble.

One man has come pretty near robbing a train by
himself; two have succeeded a few times; three can
do it if they are hustlers, but five is about the right
number. The time to do it and the place depend upon
several things.

The first "stick-up" I was ever in happened in 1890.

Maybe the way I got into it will explain how most

train robbers start in the business. Five out of six

Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and

Holding Up a Train 47

gone wrong. The sixth is a tough from the East who
dresses up like a bad man and plays some low-down
trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences
and "nesters" made five of them; a bad heart made
the sixth.

Jim S and I were working on the 101 Ranch

in Colorado. The nesters had the cowman on the
go. They had taken up the land and elected officers
who were hard to get along with. Jim and I rode
into La Junta one day, going south from a round-up.
We were having a little fun without malice toward
anybody when a farmer administration cut in and
tried to harvest us. Jim shot a deputy marshal, and
I kind of corroborated his side of the argument. We
skirmished up and down the main street, the boomers
having bad luck all the time. After a while we leaned
forward and shoved for the ranch down on the Ceriso.
We were riding a couple of horses that couldn't fly,
but they could catch birds.

A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta
boomers came to the ranch and wanted us to go back
with them. Naturallv, we declined. We had the
house on them, and before we were done refusing, that
old 'dobe was plumb full of lead. When dark came
we fagged 'em a batch of bullets and shoved out the
back door for the rocks. They sure smoked us as we
went. We had to drift, which we did, and rounded up
down in Oklahoma.

48 Sires and Sevens

WcH, there wasn't anything we could get there,
and, being mighty hard up, we decided to transact
a little business with the railroads. Jim and I joined
forces with Tom and Ike Moore — two brothers who
had plenty of sand they were willing to convert into
dust. I can call their names, for both of them are
dead. Tom was shot while robbing a bank in Ar-
kansas; Ike was killed during the more dangerous
pastime of attending a dance in the Creek Nation.

We selected a place on the Santa Fe where tlicre was
a bridge across a deep creek surrounded by heavy
timber. All passenger trains took water at the tank
close to one end of the bridge. It was a quiet place,
the nearest house being five miles awaj\ The day
before it happened, we rested our horses and "made
medicine" as to how we should get about it. Our
plans were not at all elaborate, as none of us had
ever engaged in a hold-up before.

The Santa Fe flyer was due at the tank at 11.15
r. m. At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of
the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the
train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the
track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned
weak all over. I would have worked a whole vear on
the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair
right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business
have told me that they felt the same way the first
tune.

Holding Up a Train 49

The engine had hardly stopped when I jumped
on the running-board on one side, while Jim mounted
the other. As soon as the engineer and fireman saw
our guns they threw up their hands without being
told, and begged us not to shoot, saying they would
do anything we wanted them to.

"Hit the ground," I ordered, and they both
jumped off. We drove them before us down the side
of the train. While this was happening, Tom and
Ike had been blazing away, one on each side of the
train, yelling like Apaches, so as to keep the passen-
gers herded in the cars. Some fellow stuck a little
twenty-two calibre out one of the coach windows and
fired it straigiit up in the air. I let drive and smashed
the glass just over his head. That settled everything
like resistance from that direction.

By this time all my nervousness was gone. I felt
a kind of pleasant excitement as if I were at a dance
or a frolic of some sort. The lights were all out in
the coaches, and, as Tom and Ike gradually quit
firing and yelling, it got to be almost as still as a
graveyard. I remember hearing a little bird chirp-
ing in a bush at the side of the track, as if it were
complaining at being waked up.

I made the fireman get a lantern, and then I went
to the express car and yelled to the messenger to open
up or get perforated. He slid the door open and
stood in it with his hands up. "Jump overboard,

50 Sires and Sevens

son," I said, and he hit the dirt like a lump of lead*
There were two safes in the car — a big one and a little
one. By the way, I first located the messenger's
arsenal — a double-barrelled shot-gun with buckshot
cartridges and a thirty-eight in a drawer. I drew the
cartridges from the shot-gun, pocketed the pistol, and
called the messenger inside. I shoved my gun against
his nose and put him to work. He couldn't open
the big one, but he did the little one. There was only
nine hundred dollars in it. That was mighty small
winnings for our trouble, so we decided to go through
the passengers. We took our prisoners to the smok-
ing-car, and from there sent the engineer through the
train to light up the coaches. Beginning with the
first one, we placed a man at each door and ordered
the passengers to stand between the seats with their
hands up.

If you want to find out what cowards the majority
of men are, all you have to do is rob a passenger train.
I don't mean because they don't resist — I'll tell you
later on why they can't do that — but it makes a man
feel sorry for them the way they lose their heads.
Big, burty drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and
high-collared dudes and sports that, a few moments
before, were filling the car with noise and bragging,
get so scared that their ears flop.

There were very few people in the day coaches at
that time of night, so we made a slim haul until we

Holding Up a Train 51

got to the sleeper. The Pullman conductor met me
at one door while Jim was going round to the other
one. He very politely informed me that I could not
go into that car, as it did not belong to the railroad
company, and, besides, the passengers had already
been greatly disturbed by the shouting and firing.
Never in all my life have I met with a finer instance of
official dignity and reliance upon the power of Mr.
Pullman's great name. I jabbed my six-shooter so
hard against Mr. Conductor's front that I afterward
found one of his vest buttons so firmly wedged in the
end of the barrel that I had to shoot it out. lie just
shut up like a weak-springed knife and rolled down
the car steps.

I opened the door of the sleeper and stepped inside.
A big, fat old man came wabbling up to me, puffing
and blowing. He had one coat-sleeve on and was try-
ing to put his vest on over that. I don't know who
he thought I was.

"Young man, young man," says he, "you must
keep cool and not get excited. Above everything,
keep cool."

"I can't," says I. "Excitement's just eating me
up." And then I let out a yell and turned loose my
forty-five through the skylight.

That old man tried to dive into one of the lower
berths, but a screech came out of it and a bare foot
that took him in the bread-basket and landed him on

52 Sixes and Sevens

the floor. I saw Jim coming in the other door, and
I hollered for everybody to climb out and line up.

They commenced to scramble down, and for a while
we had a three-ringed circus. The men looked as
frightened und tame as a lot of rabbits in a deep snow.
{They had on, on an average, about a quarter of a suit
of clothes and one shoe apiece. One chap was sitting
on the floor of the aisle, looking as if he were working a
hard sum in arithmetic. He was trying, very solemn,
to pull a lady's number two shoe on his number nine
foot.

The ladies didn't stop to dress. They were so curi-
ous to see a real, live train robber, bless 'cm, that they
just wrapped blankets and sheets around themselves
and came out, squeaky and fidgety looking. They al-
ways show more curiosity and sand than the men do.

We got them all lined up and pretty quiet, and I
went through the bunch. I found \xry lit tie on them —
I mean in the way of valuables. One man in the line
was a sight, lie was one of those big, overgrown,
solemn snoozers that sit on the platform at lectures
and look wise. Before crawling out he had managed
to put on his long, frocktailed coat and his high silk
hat. The rest of him was nothing but pajamas and
bunions. When I dug into that Prince Albert, I ex-
pected to drag out at least a block of gold mine stock
or an armful of Government bonds, but all 1 found was
a little boy's French harp about four inches long.

Holding Up a Train 53

What it was there for, I don't know. I felt a little
mud because he had fooled me so. I stuck the harp
up against his mouth.

"If you can't pay — play," I says.

"I can't play," says he.

"Then learn right off quick," says I, letting him
smell the end of my gun -barrel.

He caught hold of the harp, turned red as a beet,
and commenced to blow. He blew a dinky little tune
I remembered hearing when I was a kid :

Prettiest little gal in the country — oh !
Mammy and Daddy told me so.

I made him keep on playing it all the time we were
in the car. Now and then he'd get weak and off tire
key, and I'd turn my gun on him and ask what was
the matter with that little gal, and whether he had
any intention of going back on her, which would make
him start up again like sixty. I think that old boy
standing there in his silk hat and bare feet, playing his
little French harp, was the funniest sight I ever saw.
One little red-headed woman in the line broke out
laughing at him. You could have heard her in the
next car.

Then Jim held them steady while I searched the
berths. I grappled around in those beds and
filled a pillow-case with the strangest assortment
of stuff you ever saw. Now and then I'd come

54 Sixes and Sevens

across a little pop-gun pistol, just about right
for plugging teeth with, which I'd throw out the
window. When I finished with the collection, I
dumped the pillow-case load in the middle of the aisle.
There were a good many watches, bracelets, rings, and
pocket-books, with a sprinkling of false teeth, whiskey
flasks, face-powder boxes, chocolate caramels, and
heads of hair of various colours and lengths. There
were also about a dozen ladies 9 stockings into which
jewellery, watches, and rolls of bills had been stuffed
and then wadded up tight and stuck under the mat-
tresses. I ofFered to return what I called the
"scalps," saying that we were not Indians on the war-
path, but none of the ladies seemed to know to whom
the hair belonged.

One of the women — and a good-looker she was —
wrapped in a striped blanket, saw me pick up one of
the stockings that was pretty chunky and heavy about
the toe, and she snapped out:

"That's mine, sir. You're not in the business of
robbing women, are you?"

Now, as this was our first hold-up, we hadn't agreed
upon any code of ethics, so I hardly knew what to
answer. But, anyway, I replied: "Well, not as a
specialty. If this contains your personal property
you can have it back."

"It just does," she declared eagerly, and reached
out her hand for it.

Holding Up a Train 55

"You'll excuse my taking a look at the contents,"
I said, holding the stocking up by the toe. Out
dumped a big gent's gold watch, worth two hundred,
a gent's leather pocket-book that we afterward found
to contain six hundred dollars, a 32-calibre revolver ;
and the only thing of the lot that could have been a
lady's personal property was a silver bracelet worth
about fifty cents.

I said: "Madame, here's your property," and
handed her the bracelet. "Now," I went on, "how
can you expect us to act square with you when you
try to deceive us in this manner? I'm surprised at
such conduct."

The young woman flushed up as if she had been
caught doing something dishonest. Some other
woman down the line called out : "The mean thing 1"
I never knew whether she meant the other lady or me.

When we finished our job we ordered everybody
back to bed, told 'em good night very politely at the
door, and left. We rode forty miles before daylight
and then divided the stuff. Each one of us got
$1,752.85 in money. We lumped the j ewellery around.
Then we scattered, each man for himself.

That was my first train robber} 7 , and it was about
as easily done as any of the ones that followed. But
that was the last and only time I ever went through
the passengers. I don't like that part of the business.
Afterward I stuck strictly to the express car. Dur-

66 Sixes and Sevens

ing the next eight years I handled a good deal of
money.

The best haul I made was just seven years after
the first one. We found out about a train that was go-
ing to bring out a lot of money to pay off the soldiers
at a Government post. We stuck that train up in
broad daylight. Five of us lay in the sand hills near a
little station. Ten soldiers were guarding the money
on the train, but they might just as well have been at
home on a furlough. We didn't even allow them to
stick their heads out the windows to see the fun.
We had no trouble at all in getting the money, which
was all in gold. Of course, a big howl was raised at
the time about the robbery. It was Government stuff*
and the Government got sarcastic and wanted to know
what the convoy of soldiers went along for. The
only excuse given was that nobody was expecting an
attack among those bare sand hills in daytime. I
don't know what the Government thought about th%
excuse, but I know that it was a good one. The
surprise — that is the keynote of the train-robbing
business. The papers published all kinds of stories
about the loss, finally agreeing that it was between
nine thousand and ten thousand dollars. The Gov-
ernment sawed wood. Here are the correct figures,
printed for the first time — forty-eight thousand
dollars. If anybody will take the trouble to look over
Uncle Sam's private accounts for that little debit to

Holding Up a Train 57

profit and loss, he will find that I am right to a
cent.

By that time we were expert enough to know what
to do. We rode due west twenty miles, making a
trail that a Broadway policeman could have followed,
and then we doubled back, hiding our tracks. On the
Second night after the hold-up, while posses were
scouring the country in every direction, Jim and I
were eating supper in the second story of a friend's
house in the town where the alarm started from.
Our friend pointed out to us, in an office across the
street, a printing press at work striking off handbills
offering a reward for our capture.

I have been asked what we do with the money we

get. Well, I never could account for a tenth part of

it after it was spent. It goes fast and freely. An

outlaw has to have a good many friends. A highly

respected citizen may, and often does, get along with

very few, but a man on the dodge has got to have

"sidekickers." With angry posses and reward-hungry

officers cutting out a hot trail for him, he must have

a few places scattered about the country where he

can stop and feed himself and his horse and get a

few hours' sleep without having to keep both eyes open.

When he makes a haul he feels like dropping some of

the coin with these friends, and he does it liberally.

Sometimes I have, at the end of a hasty visit at one

of these havens of refuge, flung a handful of gold and

58 Sixes and Sevens

bills Into the laps of the kids playing on the floor,
without knowing whether my contribution was a hun-
dred dollars or a thousand.

When old-timers make a big haul they generally
go far away to one of the big cities to spend their
money. Green hands, however successful a hold-up
they make, nearly always give themselves away by
showing too much money near the place where they
got it.

I was in a job in '94 where we got twenty thousand
dollars. We followed our favourite plan for a get-
away — that is, doubled on our trail — and laid low
for a time near the scene of the train's back luck. One
morning I picked up a newspaper and read an article
with big headlines stating that the marshal, with eight
deputies and a posse of thirty armed citizens, had the
train robbers surrounded in a mesquite thicket on the
Cimarron, and that it was a question of only a few
hours when they would be dead men or prisoners.
While I was reading that article I was sitting at break-
fast in one of the most elegant private residences in
Washington City, with a flunky in knee pants standing
behind my chair. Jim was sitting across the table
talking to his half-uficle, a retired naval officer, whose
name you have often seen in the accounts of doings
in the capital. We had gone there and bought
rattling outfits of good clothes, and were resting from
our labours among the nabobs. We must have been

Holding Up a Train 59

lulled ia that mesquite thicket, for I can make an
affidavit that we didn't surrender.

Now I propose to tell why it is easy to hold up a
train, and, then, why no one should ever do it.

In the first place, the attacking party has all the
advantage. That is, of course, supposing that they
are old-timers with the necessary experience and cour-
age. They have the outside and are protected by the
darkness, while the others are in the light, hemmed into
a small space, and exposed, the moment they show a
head at a window or door, to the aim of a man who is a
dead shot and who won't hesitate to shoot.

But, in my opinion, the main condition that makes
train robbing easy is the element of surprise in con-
nection with the imagination of the passengers. If
you have ever seen a horse that has eaten loco weed
you will understand what I mean when I say that the
passengers get locoed. That horse gets the awf ullest
imagination on him in the world. You can't coax
him to cross a little branch stream two feet wide. It
looks as big to him as the Mississippi River. That's
just the way with the passenger, lie thinks there are
a hundred men yelling and shooting outside, when may-
be there are only two or three. And the muzzle of
a forty-five looks like the entrance to a tunnel. The
passenger is all right, although he may do mean little
tricks, like hiding a wad of money in his shoe and for-
getting to dig-up until you jostle his ribs some with

60 Sixes and Sevens

the end of jour six-shooter ; but there's no harm in him.
As to the train crew, we never had any more trou-
ble with them than if they had been so many sheep.
I don't mean that they are cowards; I mean that
they have got sense. They know they're not up
against a bluff. It's the same way with the officers.
I've seen secret service men, marshals, and railroad
detectives fork over their change as meek as
Moses. I saw one of the bravest marshals I ever
knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along
with the rest while I was taking toll. He wasn't
afraid ; he simply knew that we had the drop on the
whole outfit. Besides, many of those officers have
families and they feel that they oughtn't to take
chances ; whereas death has no terrors for the man
who holds up a train. He expects to get killed
some day, and he generally does. My advice to you*
if you should ever be in a hold-up, is to line up with
the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion
when it may be of some benefit to you. Another rea*
son why officers are backward about mixing things with
a train robber is a financial one. Every time there
is a scrimmage and somebody gets killed, the officers
lose money. If the train robber gets away they
swear out a warrant against John Doe et al, and travel
hundreds of miles and sign vouchers for thousands on
the trail of the fugitives, and the Government foots
the bills. So, with them, it is a question of mileage
rather than courage.

Holding Up a Train 61

I will give one instance to support my statement
that the surprise is the best card in playing for a
hold-up.

Along in '92 the Daltons were cutting out a hot trail
for the officers down in the Cherokee Nation. Those
were their lucky days, and they got so reckless and
sandy, that they used to announce before hand what
job they were going to undertake. Once they gave
it out that they were going to hold up the M. K. & T.
flyer on a certain night at the station of Pryor Creek,
in Indian Territory.

That night the railroad company got fifteen deputy
marshals in Muscogee and put them on the train.
Beside them they had fifty armed men hid in the depot
at Pryor Creek.

When the Katy Flyer pulled in not a Dal ton showed
up. The next station was Adair, six miles away.
When the train reached there, and the deputies were
having a good time explaining what they would have
done to the Dalton gang if they had turned up, all
at once it sounded like an army firing outside. The
conductor and brakeman came running into the car
yelling, "Train robbers !"

Some of those deputies lit out of the door, hit the
ground, and kept on running. Some of them hid their
Winchesters under the seats. Two of them made a
fight and were both killed.

It took the Daltons just ten minutes to capture the
train and whip the escort. In twenty minutes more

62 Sixes and Sevens

they robbed the express car of twenty-seven thousand
dollars and made a clean get-away.

My opinion is that those deputies would have put
up a stiff fight at Pryor Creek, where they were ex-
pecting trouble, but they were taken by surprise and
"locoed" at Adair, just as the Daltons, who knew
their business, expected they would.

I don't think I ought to close without giving some
deductions from my experience of eight years "on the
dodge." It doesn't pay to rob trains. Leaving out
the question of right and morals, which I don't think
I ought to tackle, there is very little to envy in the
life of an outlaw. After a while money ceases to have
any value in his eyes. He gets to looking upon the
railroads and express companies as his bankers, and
his six-shooters as a cheque book good for any amount.
He throws away money right and left. Most of the
time he is on the jump, riding day and night, and he
lives so hard between times that he doesn't enjoy the
taste of high life when he gets it. He knows that his
time is bound to come to lose his life or liberty, and
that the accuracy of his aim, the speed of his horse,
and the fidelity of his "sider," are all that postpone
the inevitable.

It isn't that he loses any sleep over danger from the
Dtficers of the law. In all my experience I never knew
officers to attack a band of outlaws unless they out-
numbered them at least three to one.

Holding Up a Train 63

But the outlaw carries one thought constantly in
his mind — and that is what makes him so sore against
life, more than anything else — he knows where the
marshals get their recruits of deputies. He knows
that the majority of these upholders of the law were
once lawbreakers, horse thieves, rustlers, highwaymen,
and outlaws like himself, and that they gained their
positions and immunity by turning state's evidence,
by turning traitor and delivering up their comrades
to imprisonment and death. He knows that some
day — unless he is shot first — his Judas will set to
work, the trap will be laid, and he will be the surprised
instead of a surpriser at a stick-up.

That is why the man who holds up trains picks his
company with a thousand times the care with which
a careful girl chooses a sweetheart. That is why he
raises himself from his blanket of nights and listens
to the tread of every horse's hoofs on the distant road.
That is why he broods suspiciously for days upon a
jesting remark or an unusual movement of a tried
comrade, or the broken mutterings of his closest
friend, sleeping by his side.

And it is one of the reasons why the train-robbing
profession is not so pleasant a one as either of its col-
lateral branches — politics or cornering the market.

ULYSSES AND THE DOGMAN

JDO YOU know the time of the dogmen?

When the forefinger of twilight begins to emudge
the clear-drawn lines of the Big City there is inaugu-
rated an hour devoted to one of the most melancholy
sights of urban life.

Out from the towering flat crags and apartment
peaks of the cliff dwellers of New York steals an army
of beings that were once men. Even yet they go
upright upon two limbs and retain human form and
speech ; but you will observe that they are behind
animals in progress. Each of these beings follows
a dog, to which he is fastened by an artificial
ligament.

These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly

do they become flunkeys to Fido, bell boys to bull

terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. Modern Circe,

instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left

the difference of a six-foot leash between them. Every

one of those dogmen has been either cajoled, bribed,

or commanded by his own particular Circe to take

the dear household pet out for an airing.

Ulysses and the Dogman 65

By their faces and manner you can tell that the
dogmen are bound in a hopeless enchantment. Never
will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses to remove
the spell.

The faces of some are stonily set. They are past
the commiseration, the curiosity, or the jeers of their
fellow-beings. Years of matrimony, of continuous
compusory canine constitutionals, have made them
callous. They unwind their beasts from lamp posts,
or the ensnared legs of profane pedestrians, with the
stolidity of mandarins manipulating the strings of
their kites.

Others, more recently reduced to the ranks of
Rover's retinue, take their medicine sulkily and
fiercely. They play the dog on the end of their
line with the pleasure felt by the girl out fishing when
she catches a sea-robin on her hook. They glare at
you threateningly if you look at them, as if it would
be their delight to let slip the dogs of war. These are
half-mutinous dogmen, not quite Circe-ized, and you
will do well not to kick their charges, should they sniff
around your ankles.

Others of the tribe do not seem to feel so keenly.
They are mostly unfresh youths, with gold caps and
drooping cigarettes, who do not harmonize with their
dogs. The animals they attend wear satin bows
in their collars ; and the young men steer them so
assiduously that you are tempted to the theory

66 Sixes and Sevens

that some personal advantage, contingent upon
satisfactory service, waits upon the execution of
their duties.

The dogs thus personally conducted are of many
varieties; but they are one in fatness, in pampered,
diseased vileness of temper, in insolent, snarling capri-
ciousness of behaviour. They tug at the leash frac-
tiously, they make leisurely nasal inventory of every
door step, railing, and post. They sit down to rest
when they choose; they wheeze like the winner of a
Third Avenue beefsteak-eating contest ; they blunder
clumsily into open cellars and coal holes; they lead
the dogmen a merry dance.

These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur
cuddlcrs, mongrel managers, Spitz stalkers, poodle
pullers, Skye scrapers, dachshund dandlers, terrier
trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the cliff -dwelling
Circes follow their charges meekly. The doggies
neither fear nor respect them. Masters of the house
these men whom they hold in leash may be, but they
are not masters of them. From cosey corner to fire
escape, from divan to dumbwaiter, doggy's snarl easily
drives this two-legged being who is commissioned
to walk at the other end of his string during his
outing.

One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at
their Circes* pleading, guerdon, or crack of the whip.
One among them was a strong man, apparently of

Ulysses and the Dogman 67!

too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expres-
sion was melancholic, his manner depressed. He
was leashed to a vile white dog, loathsomely fat,
fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable toward
his despised conductor.

At a corner nearest to his apartment house the
dogman turned down a side street, hoping for fewer
witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited beast
waddled before him, panting with spleen and the
labour of motion.

Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-
coated, wide-brimmed man stood like a Colossus
blocking the sidewalk and declaring :

"Well, I'm a son of a gun !"

"Jim Berry !" breathed the dogman, with exclama-
tion points in his voice.

"Sam Telfair," cried Wide-Brim again, "you ding-
basted old willy-walloo, give us your hoof!"

Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting
of the West that is death to the hand-shake
microbe.

"You old fat rascal !" continued Wide-Brim,
with a wrinkled brown smile; "it's been five
years since I seen you. I been in tins town a
week, but you can't find nobody in such a place.
Well, you dinged old married man, how are they
coming?"

Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough

68 Sires and Sevens

leaned against Jim's leg and chewed his trousers with
a yeasty growl.

"Get to work," said Jim, "and explain this yard-
wide hydrophobia yearling you've throwed your lasso
over. Arc you the pound-master of this burg? Do
you call that a dog or what?"

"I need a drink," said the dogman, dejected at
the reminder of his old dog of the sea. "Come on."

Hard by was a cafe. 'Tis ever so in the big
city.

They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped
and scrambled at the end of his leash to get at the
cafe cat.

"Whiskey," said Jim to the waiter.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

"You're fatter," said Jim, "and you look subju-
gated. I don't know about the East agreeing with
you. All the boys asked me to hunt you up when
I started. Sandy King, he went to the Klondike*
Watson Burrel, he married the oldest Peters girl.
I made some money buying beeves, and I bought
a lot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going
to fence next fall. Bill Rawlins, he's gone to farming.
You remember Bill, of course — he was courting
Marcella — excuse me, Sam — I mean the lady you
married, while she was teaching school at Prairie
View. But you was the lucky man. How is Missis
Telfair?"

Ulysses and the Dogman 69

* ,

"S-h-h-h!" said the dogman, sigr ailing the waiter;
*'give it a name."

"Whiskey," said Jim.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

"She's well," he continued, after his chaser. "She
refused to live anywhere but in New York, where
she came from. We live in a flat. Every evening at
six I take that dog out for a walk. It's Marcella's
pet. There never were two animals on earth, Jim,
that hated one another like me and that dog does.
His name's Lovekins. Marcella dresses for dinner
while we're out. We eat tabblc dote. Ever try one
of them, Jim?"

"No, I never," said Jim. "I seen the signs, but
I thought they said 'table de 11010.' I thought it
was French for pool tables. How does it taste?"

"If you're going to be in the city for awhile we
will "

"No, sir-ee. I'm starting for home this evening on
the 7.25. Like to stay longer, but I can't."

"I'll walk down to the ferry with you," said the
dogman.

The dog had bound a leg each of Jim and the chair
together, and had sunk into a comatose slumber.
Jim stumbled, and the leash was slightly wrenched.
The shrieks of the awakened beast rang for a block
around.

"If that's your dog," said Jim, when they were on

70 Sixes and Sevens

the street again, "what's to hinder you from run-
ning that habeas corpus you've got around his neck
over a limb and walking off and forgetting him?"

"I'd never dare to," said the dogman, awed at
the bold proposition. "He sleeps in the bed. I sleep
on a lounge. He runs howling to Marcella if I look
at him. Some night, Jim, I'm going to get even with
that dog. I've made up my mind to do it. I'm go-
ing to creep over with a knife and cut a hole in his
mosquito bar so they can get in to him. See if I
don't do it!"

"You ain't yourself, Sam Telfair. You ain't what
you was once. I don't know about these cities and
flats over here. With my own eyes I seen you stand
off botli the Tillotson bovs in Frairie View with the
brass faucet out of a molasses barrel. And I seen
you rope and tie the wildest steer on Little Powdef
in 39 1-2."

"I did, didn't If" said the other, with a temporary
gleam in his eye. "But that was before I was dog-
matized."

"Does Misses Telfair" — began Jim.

"Hush !" said the dogman. "Here's another cafeV*

They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at
their feet.

"Whiskev," said Jim.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

"I thought about you," said Jim, "when I bought

Ulysses and the Dogman 71

that wild land. I wished you was out there to help
me with the stock."

"Last Tuesday ," said the dogman, "he bit me oh
the ankle because I asked for cream in my coffee.
He always gets the cream."

"You'd like Prairie View now," said Jim. "The
boys from the round-ups for fifty miles around ride
in there. One corner of my pasture is in sixteen
miles of the town. There's a straight forty miles
of wire on one side of it."

"You pass through the kitchen to get to the bed-
room," said the dogman, "and j t ou pass through the
parlour to get to the bathroom, and you back out
through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so
you can turn around and leave by the kitchen. And
he snores and barks in his sleep, and I have to smoke
in the park on account of his asthma."

"Don't Missis Telfair," — began Jim.

"Oh, shut up !" said the dogman. "What is it this
time?"

"Whiskey," said Jim.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

"Well, I'll be racking along down toward the ferry,"
said the other.

"Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-
headed, bench-legged ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!"
shouted the dogman, with a new note in his voice
and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled

72 Sixes and Sevens

after them, with an angry whine at such unusual
language from his guardian.

At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led
the way through swinging doors.

"Last chance," said he. "Speak up."

"Whiskev," said Jim.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

"I don't know," said the ranchman, "where I'll
find the man I want to take charge of the Little
Powder outfit. I want somebody I know something
about. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever
squinted your eye over, Sam. Now if you was "

"Speaking of hydrophobia," said the dogman, "the
other night he chewed a piece out of my leg because
I knocked a fly off of Marcella's arm. 'It ought to
be cauterized,' says Marcella, and I was thinking so
myself. I telephones for the doctor, and when he
comes Marcella says to me: 'Help me hold the poor
dear while the doctor fixes his mouth. Oh, I hope he
got no virus on any of his toofies when he bit you.*
Now what do you think of that?"

"Does Missis Telfair" — began Jim.

"Oh, drop it," said the dogman. "Come again!"

"Whiskey," said Jim.

"Make it two," said the dogman.

They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman
stepped to the ticket window.

Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy

Ulysses and the Dogman 73

11 •

kicks was heard, the air was rent by piercing canine
shrieks, and a pained, outraged, lubberly, bow-legged
pudding of a dog ran f renziedly up the street alone.

"Ticket to Denver," said Jim.

"Make it two," shouted the ex-dogman, reaching
for his inside pocket.

THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER

IF YOU should speak of the Kiowa Reservation
to the average New Yorker he probably wouldn't
know whether you were referring to a new political
dodge at Albany or a leitmotif from "Parsifal." But
out in the Kiowa Reservation advices have been re-
ceived concerning the existence of New York.

A party of us were on a hunting trip in the Reser-
vation. Bud Kingsbury, our guide, philosopher, and
friend, was broiling antelope steaks in camp one night.
One of the party, a pinkish-haired young man in a
correct hunting costume, sauntered over to the fire
to light a cigarette, and remarked carelessly to Bud;

"Nice night !"

"Why, yes," said Bud, "as nice as any night could be
that ain't received the Broadway stamp of approval."

Now, the young man was from New York, but the
rest of us wondered how Bud guessed it. So, when the
steaks were done, we besought him to lay bare his
system of ratiocination. And as Bud was something
of a Territorial talking machine he made oration as;

follows :

The Champion of the Weather 75

"How did I know he was from New York? Well, I
figured it out as soon as he sprung them two words
on me. I was in New York myself a coiiple of years
ago, and I noticed some of the earmarks and hoof
tracks of the Rancho Manhattan."

"Found New York rather different from the Pan-
handle, didn't you, Bud?" asked one of the hunters.

"Can't say that I did," answered Bud ; "anyways,
not more than some. The main trail in that town
which they call Broadway is plenty travelled, but
they're about the same brand of bipeds that tramp
around in Cheyenne and Amarillo. At first I was
sort of rattled by the crowds, but I soon says to myself,
'Here, now, Bud ; they're just plain folks like you and
Geronimo and Grover Cleveland and the Watsoa
boys, so don't get all flustered up with consternation
under your saddle blanket,' and then I feels calm
and peaceful, like I was back in the Nation again at a
ghost dance or a green corn pow-wow.

"I'd been saving up for a year to give this New York
a whirl. I knew a man named Summers that lived
there, but I couldn't find him ; so I played a lone
hand at enjoying the intoxicating pleasures of the
corn-fed metropolis.

"For a while I was so frivolous and locoed by the
electric lights and the noises of the phonographs and
the second-story railroads that I forgot one of the
crying needs of my Western system of natural require

76 Sixes and Sevens

ments. I never was no hand to deny myself the
pleasures of social vocal intercourse with friends and
strangers. Out in the Territories when I meet a man
I never saw before, inside of nine minutes I know
his income, religion, size of collar, and his wife's
temper, and how much he pays for clothes, alimony,
and chewing tobacco. It's a gift with me not to be
penurious with my conversation.

"But this here New York was inaugurated on the
idea of abstemiousness in regard to the parts of speech.
At the end of three weeks nobody in the city had fired
even a blank syllable in my direction except the
waiter in the grub emporium where I fed. And as
his outpourings of syntax wasn't nothing but plagia-
risms from the bill of fare, he never satisfied my yearn-
ings, which was to have somebody hit. If I stood
next to a man at a bar he'd edge off and give a Bald-
win-Ziegler look as if he suspected me of having the
North Fole concealed on my person. I began to wish
that I'd gone to Abilene or Waco for my paseado; for
the mayor of them places will drink with you, and
the first citizen you meet will tell you his middle
name and ask you to take a chance in a raffle for a
music box.

"Well, one day when I was particular hankering for
to be gregarious with something more loquacious than
a lamp post, a fellow in a caffy says to me, says he:

"'Nice day!'

The Champion of the Weather 77

"He was a kind of a manager of the place, and I
reckon he'd seen me in there a good many times. He
had a face like a fish and an eye like Judas, but I got
up and put one arm around his neck.

"'Pardncr,' I says, 'sure it's a nice day. You're
the first gentleman in all New York to observe that the
intricacies of human speech might not be altogether
wasted on William Kingsbury. But don't you think,'
says I, 'that 'twas a little cool early in the morning;
and ain't there a feeling of rain in the air to-night?
But along about noon it sure was gallupsious weather.
How's all up to the house? You doing right well with
the caiTv, now?'

"Well, sir, that galoot just turns his back and walks
off stU, without a word, after all my trying to be
agreeable! I didn't know what to make of it. That
night I findi a note from Summers, who'd been away
from town, giving the address of his camp. I goes up
to his house and has a good, old-time talk with his
folks. And I tells Summers about the actions of this
coyote in the caffy, and desires interpretation.

"'Ch,' says Summers, 'he wasn't intending to strike
up a conversation with you. That's just the New
York style. He'd seen you was a regular customer and
he spoke a word or two j ust to show you he appreciated
your custom. You oughtn't to have followed it up.
That's about as far as we care to go with a stranger.
A word or so about the weather may be ventured,

78 Sixes and Sevens

but we don't generally make it the basis of an
acquaintance. 9 ,

" 'Billy,' says I, 'the weather and its ramifications
is a solemn subject with me. Meteorology is one of
my sore points. No man can open up the question of
temperature or humidity or the glad sunshine with
me, and then turn tail on it without its leading to
a falling barometer. I'm going down to see that man
again and give him a lesson in the art of continuous
conversation. You say New York etiquette allows
him two words and no answer. Well, he's going to
turn himself into a weather bureau and finish what
he begun with me, besides indulging in neighbourly
remarks on other subjects.'

"Summers talked agin it, but I was irritated some
and I went on the street car back to that caffv.

"The same fellow was there yet, walking round in
a sort of back corral where there was tables and
chairs. A few people was sitting around having
drinks and sneering at one another.

"I called that man to one side and herded him into
a corner. I unbuttoned enough to show him a thirty-
eight I carried stuck under my vest.

" 'Pardner,' I sa3 T s, 'a brief space ago I was in here
and you seized the opportunity to say it was a nice
day. When I attempted to corroborate your weather
signal, you turned your back and walked off. Now,*
says I, 'you frog-hearted, language-shy, stiff-necked

The Champion of the Weather 79

cross between a Spitzbergen sea cook and a muzzled
oyster, you resume where you left off in your discourse
on the weather.'

"The fellow looks at me and tries to grin, but he
sees I don't and he comes around serious.

"'Well,' says he, eyeing the handle of my gun,
'it was rather a nice day ; some warmish, though.'

" 'Particulars, you mealy-mouthed snoozer,' I says
— 'let's have the specifications — expatiate — fill in
the outlines. When you start anything with me in
shorthand it's bound to turn out a storm signal.'

'"Looked like rain yesterda}',' says the man, 'but
it cleared off fine in the forenoon. I hear the farmers
are needing rain right badly up-State.'

" 'That's the kind of a canter,' says I. < Shake the
New York dust off your hoofs and be a real agreeable
kind of a centaur. You broke the ice, you know,
and we're getting better acquainted every minute.
Seems to me I asked you about your family?'

"'They're all well, thanks,' says he. 'We — we
have a new piano.'

'"Now you're coming it,' I says. 'This cold re-
serve is breaking up at last. That little touch about
the piano almost makes us brothers. What's th*
youngest kid's name?' I asks him.

"'Thomas,' says he. 'He's just getting well from
the measles.'

" 'I feel like I'd known you always,' says I. *Now

80 Sixes and Sevens

there was just one more — are you doing right weC
with the caffy, now?'

Trctty well/ he says. Tm putting away a little

money.

Glad to hear it, 5 says I. 'Now go back to your
work and get civilized. Keep your hands off the
weather unless you're ready to follow it up in a per-
sonal manner. It's a subject that naturally belongs
to sociability and the forming of new ties, and I hate
to see it handed out in small change in a town like
this.'

"So the next day I rolls up my blankets and hits
the trail away from New York City."

For many minutes after Bud ceased talking we
lingered around the fire, and then all hands began to
disperse for bed.

As I was unrolling my bedding I heard the pinkish-
haired young man saying to Bud, with something like
anxiety in his voice :

"As I say, Mr. Kingsbury, there is something really
beautiful about this night. The delightful breeze
and the bright stars and the clear air unite in making
it wonderfully attractive."

"Yes," said Bud, "it's a nice night."

VIII
MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN

1 HE burglar stepped inside the window quickly,
and then he took his time. A burglar who respects
his art always takes his time before taking anything
else.

The house was a private residence. By its boarded
front door and un trimmed Boston ivy the burglar knew
that the mistress of it was sitting on some ocean-
side piazza telling a sympathetic man in a yachting
cap that no one had ever understood her sensitive,
lonely heart. He knew by the light in the third-
story front windows, and by the lateness of the sea-
son, that the master of the house had come home,
and would soon extinguish his light and retire. For
it was September of the year and of the soul, in which
season the house's good man comes to consider roof
gardens and stenographers as vanities, and to desire
the return of his mate and the more durable blessings
of decorum and the moral excellencies.

The burglar lighted a cigarette. The guarded glow

of the match illuminated his salient points for a

moment. He belonged to the third type of burgL

82 Sixes and Sevens

This third type has not yet been recognized and
accepted. The police have made us familiar with the
first and second. Their classification is simple. The
collar is the distinguishing mark.

When a burglar is caught who does not wear a
collar he is described as a degenerate of the lowest
type, singularly vicious and depraved, and is suspected
of being the desperate criminal who stole the hand-
cuffs out of Patrolman Hennessy's pocket in 1878
and walked away to escape arrest.

The other well-known type is the burglar who wears
a collar. He is always referred to as a Raffles in
real life. He is invariably a gentleman by daylight,
breakfasting in a dress suit, and posing as a paper-
hanger, while after dark he plies his nefarious occu-
pation of burglary. His mother is an extremely
wealthy and respected resident of Ocean Grove, and
when he is conducted to his cell he asks at once for
a nail file and the Police Gazette. He always has a
wife in every State in the Union and fiancees in all
the Territories, and the newspapers print his matri-
monial gallery out of their stock of cuts of the ladies
who were cured by only one bottle after having been
given up by five doctors, experiencing great relief
after the first dose.

The burglar wore a blue sweater. He was neither
a Raffles nor one of the chefs from Hell's Kitchen.
The police would have been baffled had they attempted

Mokes the Whole World Kin 88

to classify him. They have not yet heard of the
respectable, unassuming burglar who is neither above
nor below his station.

This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He
wore no masks, dark lanterns, or gum shoes. He
carried a 38-calibre revolver in his pocket, and he
chewed peppermint gum thoughtfully.

The furniture of the house was swathed in its sum-
mer dust protectors. The silver was far away in safe-
deposit vaults. The burglar expected no remarkable
"haul." His objective point was that dimly lighted
room where the master of the house should be sleep-
ing heavily after whatever solace he had sought to
lighten the burden of his loneliness. A "touch" might
be made there to the extent of legitimate, fair pro-
fessional profits — loose money, a watch, a jewelled
stick-pin — nothing exorbitant or beyond reason. He
had seen the window left open and had taken
the chance.

The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted
room. The gas was turned low. A man lay in the
bed asleep. On the dresser lay many things in con-
fusion — a crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three
poker chips, crushed cigars, a pink silk hair bow, and
an unopened bottle of bromo-seltzer for a bulwark
in the morning.

The burglar took three steps toward the dresser.
The man in the bed suddenly uttered a squeaky groan

84 Sixes and Sevens

and opened his eyes. His right hand slid under his
pilJow, but remained there.

^'Lay still," said the burglar in conversational
tone. Burglars of the third type do not hiss. The
citizen in the bed looked at the round end of the
burglar's pistol and lay still.

"Now hold up both your hands," commanded the
burglar.

The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray
beard, like that of a painless dentist. He looked
solid, esteemed, irritable, and disgusted. He sat up
in bed and raised his right hand above his head.

Up with the other one," ordered the burglar.
You might be amphibious and shoot with your left.
You can count two, can't you? Hurry up, now."

"Can't raise the other one," said the citizen, with
a contortion of his lineaments.

"What's the matter with it?"

"Rheumatism in the shoulder."

"Inflammatory ?"

"Was. The inflammation has gene down."

The burglar stood for a moment or two, holding his
gun on the afflicted one. He glanced at the plunder
on the dresser and then, with a half-embarrassed air
back at the man in the bed. Then he, too, made a
sudden grimace.

"Don't stand there making faces," snapped the
citizen, bad-humouredly. "If you've come to burgle

Makes the Whole World Kin 85

why don't you do it? There's some stuff lying
around."

" 'Scuse me," said the burglar, with a grin ; "but
it just socked me one, too. It's good for you that
rheumatism and me happens to be old pals. I got it
in my left arm, too. Most anybody but me would
have popped you when you wouldn't hoist that left
claw of yours."

"How long have you had it?" inquired the citizen.

"Four years. I guess that ain't all. Once you've
got it, it's you for a rheumatic life — that's my judg-
ment."

"Ever try rattlesnake oil?" asked the citizen, in-

terestedlv.

"Gallons," said the burglar. "If all the snakes I've
used the oil of was strung out in a row they'd reach
eight times as far as Saturn, and the rattles could
be heard at Valparaiso, Indiana, and back."

"Some use Chiselum's Pills," remarked the citizen.

"Fudge !" said the burglar. "Took 'em five months.
No good. I had some relief the year I tried Finkel-
ham's Extract, Balm of Gilead poultices and Potts's
Pain Pulverizer; but I think it was the buckeye I
carried in my pocket what done the trick."

"Is yours worse in the morning or at night?" asked
the citizen.

"Night," said the burglar; "just when I'm busiest.
Say, take dawn that arm of yours — I guess you won't

86 Sixes and Sevens

— Say! did you ever try Blickerstaff's Blood
Builder ?"

"I never did. Does yours come in paroxysms or is
it a steady pain ?"

The burglar sat down on the foot of the bed and
rested his gun on his crossed knee.

"It jumps," said he. "It strikes me when I ain't
looking for it. I had to give up second-story work
because I got stuck sometimes half-way up. Tell you
what — I don't believe the bloomin' doctors know
what is good for it."

"Same here. I've spent a thousand dollars without
getting any relief. Yours swell any?"

"Of mornings. And when it's goin' to rain — great
Christopher !"

"Me, too," said the citizen. "I can tell when a
streak of humidity the size of a table-cloth starts
from Florida on its way to New York. And if I
pass a theatre where there's an 'East Lynne' matinee
going on, the moisture starts my left arm jumping
like a toothache."

"It's undiluted — hades!" said the burglar.

"You'r*: rtvad right," said the citizen.

The burglar looked down at his pistol and thrust
it into his pocket with an awkward attempt at ease*

"Say, old man," he said, constrainedly, "ever try
opodeldoc?"

"Slop !" said the citizen angrily. THight as well
rub on restaurant butter.*

Makes the Whole World Kin 87

"Sure," concurred the burglar. "It's a salve suit-
able for little Minnie when the kitty scratches her
finger. I'll tell you what! We're up against it. I
only find one thing that eases her up. Hey? Little
old sanitary, ameliorating, lest-we-f orget Booze. Say
— this job's off — 'scuseme — get on your clothes and
let's go out and have some. 'Scuse the liberty, but —
ouch ! There she goes again !"

"For a week," said the citizen, "I haven't been able
to dress myself without help. I'm afraid Thomas is
in bed, and "

"Climb out," said the burglar, "I'll help you get
into your duds."

The conventional returned as a tidal wave and
flooded the citizen. He stroked his brown-and-gray
beard.

"It's very unusual" — he began.

"Here's your shirt," said the burglar, "fall out. I
know a man who said Omberry's Ointment fixed him
in two weeks so he could use both hands in tying his
four-in-hand."

As they were going out the door the citizen turned
and started back.

" 'Liked to forgot my money," he explained ; "laid
it on the dresser last night."

The burglar caught him by the right sleeve.

"Come on," he said bluffly. "I ask you. Leave it
alone. I've got the price. Ever try witch hazel
and oil of wintergreen?"

AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS

I NEVER could quite understand how Tom Hopkins
came to make that blunder, for he had been through
a whole term at a medical college — before he inherited
his aunt's fortune — and had been considered strong
in therapeutics.

We had been making a call together that evening,
and afterward Tom ran up to my rooms for a pipe
and a chat before going on to his own luxurious apart-
ments. I had stepped into the other room for a
moment when I heard Tom sing out :

"Oh, Billy, I'm going to take about four grains of
quinine, if you don't mind — I'm feeling all blue and
shivery. Guess I'm taking cold."

"All right," I called back. "The bottle is on the
second shelf. Take it in a spoonful of that elixir
of eucalyptus. It knocks the bitter out."

After I came back we sat by the fire and got our
briars going. In about eight minutes Tom sank back
into a gentle collapse.

I went straight to the medicine cabinet and

looked.

At Arms with Morpheus 89

"You unimitigated hayseed!'' I growled. "See
what money will do for a man's brains !"

There stood the morphine bottle with the stopple
out, just as Tom had left it.

I routed out another young M.D. who roomed on the
floor above, and sent him for old Doctor Gales, two
squares away. Tom Hopkins has too much money
to be attended by rising young practitioners alone.

When Gales came we put Tom through as expensive
a course of treatment as the resources of the profession
permit. After the more drastic remedies we gave him
citrate of caffeine in frequent doses and strong coffee,
and walked him up and down the floor between two of
us. Old Gales pinched him and slapped his face and
worked hard for the big check he could see in the
distance. The young M.D. from the next floor
gave Tom a most hearty, rousing kick, and then
apologized to me.

"Couldn't help it," he said. "I never kicked a
millionaire before in my life. I may never have
another opportunity."

"Now," said Doctor Gales, after a couple of hours,
"he'll do. But keep him awake for another hour.
You can do that by talking to him and shaking him
up occasionally. When his pulse and respiration
are norma* then let him sleep. I'll leave him with
you now."

I was Hk alone with Tom, whom we had laid on a

90 Sixes and Sevens

couch. He lay very still, and his eyes were half
closed, I began my work of keeping him awake.

"Well, old man," I said, "you've had a narrow
squeak, but we've pulled you through. When you
were attending lectures, Tom, didn't any of the pro-
fessors ever casually remark that m-o-r-p-h-i-a never
spells 'quinia,' especially in four-grain doses? But I
won't pile it up on you until you get on your feet.
But you ought to have been a druggist, Tom; you're
splendidly qualified to fill prescriptions."

Tom looked at me with a faint and foolish smile.

"B'ly," he murmured, "I feel jus' like a hum'n
bird fly in' around a jolly lot of most 'shpensive roses*
Don' bozzer me. Goin' sleep now."

And he went to sleep in two seconds. I shook him
by the shoulder.

"Now, Tom," I said, severely, "this won't do. The
big doctor said you must stay awake for at least an
hour. Open your eyes. You're not entirely safe yet,
you know. Wake up."

Tom Hopkins weighs one hundred and ninety-eight.
He gave me another somnolent grin, and fell into
deeper slumber. I would have made him move about,
but I might as well have tried to make Cleopatra's
needle waltz around the room with me. Tom's
breathing became stertorous, and that, in connection
with morphia poisoning, means danger.

Then I began to think. I could not rouse his body ;

At Arms with Morpheus 91

I must strive to excite his mind. "Make him angry,"
was an idea that suggested itself. "Good!" I
thought; but how? There was not a joint in
Tom's armour. Dear old fcllowJ He was good
nature itself, and a gallant gentleman, fine and true
and clean as sunlight. He came from somewhere
down South, where they still have ideals and a code.
New York had charmed, but had not spoiled him.
He had that old-fashioned, chivalrous reverence for
women, that — Eureka! — there was my idea! I
worked the thing up for a minute or two in my imagi-
nation. I chuckled to myself at the thought of spring-
ing a thing like that on old Tom Hopkins. Then I
took him by the shoulder and shook him till his ears
flopped. He opened his eyes lazily. I assumed an
expression of scorn and contempt, and pointed my
finger within two inches of his nose.

"Listen to me, Hopkins," I said, in cutting and
distinct tones, "you and I have been good friends, but
I want you to understand that in the future my doors
are closed against any mam who acts as much like a
fcoundrel as you have."

Tom looked the least bit interested.

"What's the matter, Billy?" he muttered, com-
posedly. "Don't your clothes fit you?"

"If I were in your place," I went on, "which, thank
God, I am not, I think I would be afraid to close my
eyes. How about that girl you left waiting for you

92 Sixes and Sevens

down among those lonesome Southern pines — the
girl that you've forgotten since you came into your
confounded money? Oh, I know what I'm talking
about. While you were a poor medical student she
was good enough for you. But now, since you are a
millionaire, it's different. I wonder what she thinks
of the performances of that peculiar class of people
which she has been taught to worship — the Southern
gentlemen? I'm sorry, Hopkins, that I was forced
to speak about these matters, but you've covered it
up so well and played your part so nicely that I would
have sworn you were above such unmanlv tricks."

Poor Tom. I could scarcely keep from laughing
outright to see him struggling against the effects of
the opiate. He was distinctly angry, and I didn't
blame him. Tom had a Southern temper. His
eyes were open now, and they showed a gleam or two
of fire. But the drug still clouded his mind and
bound his tongue.

"C-c-confound you," he stammered, "I'll s-smasi
you."

He tried to rise from the couch. With all his size
be was very weak now. I thrust him back with one
arm. He lay there glaring like a lion in a trap.

"That will hold you for a while, you old loony,'*
I said to myself. I got up and lit my pipe, for I was
needing a smoke. I walked around a bit, congratu-
lating myself oi. *ny brilliant idea.

At Arms with Morpheus 93

1 heard a snore. I looked around. Tom was asleep
again. I walked over and punched him on the jaw.
He looked at me as pleasant and ungrudging as an
idiot. I chewed my pipe and gave it to him hard.

"I want you to recover yourself and get out of my
rooms as soon as you can," I said, insultingly. "I'vt
told you what I think of you. If you have any honour
or honesty left you will think twice before you at-
tempt again to associate with gentlemen. She's a
poor girl, isn't she?" I sneered. "Somewhat too plain
and unfashionable for us since we got our money. Be
ashamed to walk on Fifth Avenue with her, wouldn't
you? Hopkins, you're forty-seven times wow than
a cad. Who cares for your money? I don't. I'll
bet that girl don't. Perhaps if you didn't have it
you'd be more of a man. As it is you've made a cur
of yourself, and" — I thought that quite dramatic —
"perhaps broken a faithful heart." (Old Tom Hop-
kins breaking a faithful heart!) "Let me be rid of
you as soon as possible."

I turned my back on Tom, and winked at myself in
a mirror. I heard him moving, and I turned again
quickly. I didn't want a hundred and ninety-eight
pounds falling on me from the rear. But Tom had
only turned partly over, and laid one arm across hit
face. He spoke a few words rather more distinctly
than before.

"I couldn't have — talked this way — to you, Billy,
even if I'd heard people — lyin' 'bout you. But ju§*

94 Sires and Sevens

Boon's I can s-stand up — I'll break your neck—*
don' fget it."

I did feci a little ashamed then. But it was to save
Tom. In the morning, when I explained it, we would
have a good laugh over it together.

In about twenty minutes Tom dropped into a sound,
easy slumber. I felt his pulse, listened to his respira-
tion, and let him sleep. Everything was normal, and
Tom was safe. I went into the other room and
tumbled into bed.

I found Tom up and dressed when I awoke the next
morning. He was entirely himself again with the ex-
ception of shaky nerves and a tongue like a white-oak
chip.

"What an idiot I was," he said, thoughtfully. "I
remember thinking that quinine bottle looked queer
while I was taking the dose. Have much trouble
in bringing me 'round?"

I told him no. His memory seemed bad about the
entire affair. I concluded that he had no recollection
of my efforts to keep him awake, and decided not to
tnlighten him. Some other time, I thought, when he
*as feeling better, we would have some fun over it.

When Tom was ready to go he stopped, with the
door open, and shook my hand.

"Much obliged, old fellow," he said, quietly, "for
taking so much trouble with me — and for what you
•aid. I'm going down now to telegraph to the little

A GHOST OF A CHANCE

"ACTUALLY, a hod!" repeated Mrs. Kinsolving
pathetically.

Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic
eyebrow. Thus she expressed condolence and a
generous amount of apparent surprise.

"Fancy her telling everywhere," recapitulated Mn.
Kinsolving, "that she saw a ghost in the apartment
•he occupied here — our choicest guest-room — a
ghost, carrying a hod on its shoulder — the ghost of
an old man in overalls, smoking a pipe and carrying
a hod ! The very absurdity of the thing shows her
malicious intent. There never was a Kinsolving that
carried a hod. Every one knows that Mr. Kinsolv-
ing's father accumulated his money by large building
contracts, but he never worked a day with his own
hands. He had this house built from his own plans;
but — oh, a hod! Why need she have been so cruel
and malicious?"

"It is really too bad," murmured Mrs. Bellmore,

with an approving glance of her fine eyes about the

vast chamber done in lilac and old gold. "And it

96 Sires and Sevens

was in this room she saw it ! Oh, no, I'm not afraid
of ghosts. Don't have the least fear on my account.
I'm glad you put me in here. I think family ghosts
so interesting? But, really, the story does sound a
little inconsistent. I should have expected something
better from Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins. Don't they
carry bricks in hods? Why should a ghost bring
bricks into a villa built of marble and stone? I'm so
sorry, but it makes me think that age is beginning to
tell upon Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins."

"This house," continued Mrs. Kinsolving, "was
built upon the site of an old one used by the family
during the Revolution. There wouldn't be anything
strange in its having a ghost. And there was a Cap-
tain Kinsolving who fought in General Greene*3 army,
though we've never been able to secure any papers to
vouch for it. If there is to be a family ghost, why
couldn't it have been his, instead of a bricklayer's ?"

"The ghost of a Revolutionary ancestor wouldn't
be a bad idea," agreed Mrs. Bellmore ; "but you know
how arbitrary and inconsiderate ghosts can be. May-
be, like love, they arc 'engendered in the eye.* One
advantage of those who see ghosts is that their stories
can't be disproved. By a spiteful eye, a Revolu-
tionary knapsack might easily be construed to be a
hod. Dear Mrs. Kinsolving, think no more of it. I
am sure it was a knapsack."

"But she told everybody!" mourned Mrs. Kin-

A Ghost of a Chance 97

solving, inconsolable. "She insisted upon the details.
There is the pipe. And how are you going to get out
of the overalls?"

"Shan't get into them," said Mrs. Bellmore, with
a prettily suppressed yawn; "too stiff and wrinkly.
Is that you, Felice? Prepare my bath, please. Do
you dine at seven at Clifftop, Mrs. Kinsolving? So
kind of you to run in for a chat before dinner! I
love those little touches of informality with a guest.
They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry;
I must be dressing. I am so indolent I always post-
pone it until the last moment."

Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins had been the first large
plum that the Kinsolvings had drawn from the social
pie. For a long time, the pie itself had been out of
reach on a top shelf. But the purse and the pursuit
had at last lowered it. Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins was
the heliograph of the smart society parading corps.
The glitter of her wit and actions passed along the
line, transmitting whatever was latest and most daring
in the game of peep-show. Formerly, her fame anu
leadership had been secure enough not to need the
support of such artifices as handing around live frogs
for favours at a cotillion. But, now, these things
were necessary to the holding of her throne. Besides,
middle age had come to preside, incongruous, at her
capers. The sensational papers had cut her space
from a page to two columns. Her wit developed

98 Sires and Sevens

a sting; her manners became more rough and incon-
siderate, as if she felt the royal necessity of estab-
lishing her autocracy by scorning the conventionali-
ties that bound lesser potentates.

To some pressure at the command of the Kinsolv*
ings, she had yielded so far as to honour their house
by her presence, for an evening and night. She had
her revenge upon her hostess by relating, with grim
enjoyment and sarcastic humour, her story of the
yision carrying the hod. To that lady, in raptures
at having penetrated thus far toward the coveted inner
circle, the result came as a crushing disappointment.
Everybody either sympathized or laughed, and there
was little to choose between the two modes of
expression.

But, later on, Mrs. Kinsolving's hopes and spirits
were revived by the capture of a second and grtatsr
prize.

Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore had accepted an invitation
to visit at Clifftop, and would remain for three days.
Mrs. Bellmore was one of the younger matrons, whose
beauty, descent, and wealth gave her a reserved seat
in the holy of holies that required no strenuous bolster-
ing. She was generous enough thus to give Mrs.
Kinsolving the accolade that was so poignantly de-
sired; and, at the same time, she thought how much
it would please Terence. Perhaps it would end by
solving him.

A Ghost of a Chance 90s

Terence was Mrs. Kinsolving's son, aged twenty-
Bine, quite good-looking enough, and with two or
three attractive and mysterious traits. For one,
he was very devoted to his mother, and that was
sufficiently odd to deserve notice, lor others, he
talked so little that it was irritating, and he seemed
either very shy or very deep. Terence interested Mrs.
Bellmore, because she was not sure which it was.
She intended to study him a little longer, unless sha
forgot the matter. If he was only shy, she wouK
abandon him, for shyness is a bore. If he was deep,
•he would also abandon him, for depth is precarious.

On the afternoon of the third dav of her visit,
Terence hunted up Mrs. Bellmore, and found her in a
nook actually looking at an album.

"It's so good of you," said he, "to come down here
and retrieve the day for us. I suppose you have heard
that Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins scuttled the ship befora
she left. She knocked a whole plank out of the bottom
with a hod. My mother is grieving herself ill about
it. Can't you manage to see a ghost for us while you
are here, Mrs. Bellmore — a bang-up, swell ghost,
with a coronet on his head and a cheque book under
his arm ?"

"That was a naughty old lady, Terence," said Mrs.
Bellmore, "to tell such stories. Perhaps you gave her
too much supper. Your mother doesn't really take
it seriously, dees she?"

100 Sires and Sevens

"I think she docs," answered Terence. "One
would think every brick in the hod had dropped on
her. It's a good mammy, and I don't like to see her
worried. It's to be hoped that the ghost belongs
to the hod-carriers' union, and will go out on a
strike. If he doesn't, there will be no peace in this
family."

"I'm sleeping in the ghost-chamber," said Mrs.
Bellmore, pensively. "But it's so nice I wouldn't
change it, even if I were afraid, which I'm not. It
wouldn't do for me to submit a counter story of a
desirable, aristocratic shade, would it? I would do
so, with pleasure, but it seems to me it would be too
obviously an antidote for the other narrative to be
effective."

"True," said Terence, running two fingers thought-
fully into his crisp, brown hair ; "that would never do.
How would it work to see the same ghost again, minus
the overalls, and have gold bricks in the hod? That
would elevate the spectre from degrading toil to a
financial plane. Don't you think that would be re-
spectable enough?"

"There was an ancestor who fought against the
Britishers, wasn't there? Your mother said some-
thing to that effect."

"I believe so ; one of those old chaps in raglan vests
and golf trousers. I don't care a continental for a
Continental, myself. But the mother has set her

A Ghost of a Chance 101

heart on pomp and heraldry and pyrotechnics, and
I want her to be happy."

"You are a good boy, Terence," said Mrs. Bellmore,
sweeping her silks close to one side of her, "not to
beat your mother. Sit here by me, and let's look at
the album, just as people used to do twenty years
ago. Now, tell me about every one of them. Who
is this tall, dignified gentleman leaning against the
horizon, with one arm on the Corinthian column?"

"That old chap with the big feet?" inquired Ter-
ence, craning his neck. "That's great-uncle O'Bran-
nigan. He used to keep a rathskeller on the Bowery."

"I asked you to sit down, Terence. If you are not
going to amuse, or obey me, I shall report in the
morning that I saw a ghost wearing an apron and
carrying schooners of beer. Now, that is better. To
be shy, at your age, Terence, is a thing that you should
blush to acknowledge."

At breakfast on the last morning of her visit, Mrs.
Bellmore startled and entranced every one present
by announcing positively that she had seen the ghost.

"Bid it have a — a — a — ?" Mrs. Kinsolving, in
her suspense and agitation, could not bring out the
word.

"No, indeed — far from it."

There was a chorus of questions from others at the
table. "Weren't you frightened?" "What did it

102 Sires and Sevens

do?" "How did it look?" "How was it dreised?*
"Did it say anything?" "Didn't you scream?"

"I'll try to answer everything at once," said Mrs.
Bcllmore, heroically, "although I'm frightfully hun-
gry. Something awakened me — I'm not sure whether
it was a noise or a touch — and there stood the phan-
tom. I never burn a light at night, so the room was
quite dark, but I saw it plainly. I wasn't dreaming.
It was a tall man, all misty white from head to foot.
It wore the full dress of the old Colonial davs —
powdered hair, baggy coat skirts, lace ruffles, and a
sword. It looked intangible and luminous in the dark,
and moved without a sound. Yes, I was a little
frightened at first — or startled, I should say. It
was the first ghost I had ever seen. No, it didn't saj
anything. I didn't scream. I raised up on my elbow,
and then it glided silently away, and disappeared
when it reached the door."

Mrs. Kinsolving was in the seventh heaven. "The
description is that of Captain Kinsolving, of General
Greene's army, one of our ancestors," she said, in a
voice that trembled with pride and relief. "I reallj
think I must apologize for our ghostly relative, Mrs.
Bcllmore. I am afraid he must have badly disturbed
your rest."

Terence sent a smile of pleased congratulation to-
ward his mother. Attainment was Mrs. Kinsolving'g,
at last, and he loved to see her happy.

A Ghost of a Chance 103

"I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess," said
Mrs. Bellraore, who was now enjoying her breakfast,
"that I wasn't very much disturbed. I presume it
would have been the customary thing to scream and
faint, and have all of you running about in pictur-
esque costumes. But, after the first alarm was over,
I really couldn't work myself up to a panic. The
ghost retired from the stage. quietly and peacefully,
after doing its little turn, and I went to sleep
again."

Nearly all listened, politely accepted Mrs. Bell-
taore's story as a made-up affair, charitably offered
as an offset to the unkind vision seen by Mrs. Fischer-
Suympkins. But one or two present perceived that
her assertions bore the genuine stamp of her own
convictions. Truth and candour seemed to attend
upon every word. Even a scoffer at ghosts — if
he were very observant — would have been forced
to admit that she had, at least in a very vivid dream,
been honestly aware of the weird visitor.

Soon Mrs. Bellmore's maid was packing. In two
hours the auto would come to convey her to the
station. As Terence was strolling upon the east
piazza, Mrs. Bellmore came up to him, with a con-
fidential sparkle in her eye.

"I didn't wish to tell the others all of it," she said,
"but I will tell you. In a way, I think you should
be held responsible. Can you guess in what manner
that ghost awakened me last night?"

104 Sires and Sevens

"Rattled chains," suggested Terence, after some
thought, "or groaned? They usually do one or the
other."

"Do you happen to know," continued Mrs. Bell-
rnore, with sudden irrelevancy, "if I resemble any one
of the female relatives of your restless ancestor,
Captain Kinsolving?"

"Don't think so," said Terence, with an extremely
puzzled air. "Never heard of any of them being
noted beauties."

"Then, why," said Mrs. Bellmore, looking the
young man gravely in the eye, "should that ghost
have kissed me, as I'm sure it did?"

"Heavens !" exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amaze-
ment; "you don't mean that, Mrs. Bellmore! Did
he actually kiss you?"

"I said it" corrected Mrs. Bellmore. "I hope the
impersonal pronoun is correctly used."

"But why did you say I was responsible?"

"Because you are the only living male relative of
the ghost."

"I see. 'Unto the third and fourth generation.*
But, seriously, did he — did it — how do you t"

"Know? How does any one know? I was asleep,
and that is what awakened me, I'm almost certain."

"Almost?"

"Well, I awoke just as — oh, can't you understand
what I mean? When anything arouses you suddenly

A Ghost of a Chance 105

you are not positive whether you dreamed, or — and
yet you know that — Dear me, Terence, must I
dissect the most elementary sensations in order to
accommodate your extremely practical intelligence?"

"But, ahout kissing ghosts, you know," said Ter-
ence, humbly, "I require the most primary instruction.
I never kissed a ghost. Is it — is it ?"

"The sensation," said Mrs. Bellmore, with deliber-
ate, but slightly smiling, emphasis, "since you are
seeking instruction, is a mingling of the material and
the spiritual."

"Of course," said Terence, suddenly growing seri-
ous, "it was a dream or some kind of an hallucination.
Nobody believes in spirits, these da\ T s. If you told
the tale out of kindness of heart, Mrs. Bellmore, I
can't express how grateful I am to you. It has made
my mother supremely happy. That Revolutionary
ancestor was a stunning idea."

Mrs. Bellmore sighed. "The usual fate of ghost-
seers is mine," she said, resignedly. "My privileged
encounter with a spirit is attributed to lobster salad
or mendacity. Well, I have, at least, one memory
left from the wreck — a kiss from the unseen world.
Was Captain Kinsolving a very brave man, do you
know, Terence?"

"He was licked at Yorktown, I believe," said
Terence, reflecting. "They say he skedaddled with
his compan3 r , after the first battle there."

106 Sires and Severn

"I thought he must have been timid,'* laid Mrs.
Bellmore^absently. "He might have had another."

"Another battle?" asked Terence, dully.

"What else could I mean? I must go and get
ready now; the auto will be here in an hour. I've
enjoyed Clifftop immensely. Such a lovely morning,
isn't it, Terence?"

On her way to the station, Mrs. Bellmore took
from her bag a silk handkerchief, and looked at it
with a little peculiar smile. Then she tied it in sev-
eral very hard knots, and threw it, at a convenient
moment, over the edge of the cliff along which the
road ran.

In his room, Terence was giving some directions
to his man, Brooks. "Have this stuff done up in
a parcel," he said, "and ship it to the address ou
that card."

The card was that of a New York cos turner. The
"stuff" was a gentleman's costume of the days of
'76, made of white satin, with silver buckles, white
silk stockings, and white kid shoes. A powdered wig
and a sword completed the dress.

"And look about, Brooks," added Terence, a little
anxiously, "for a silk handkerchief with my initials
in one corner. I must have dropped it somewhere."

It was a month later when Mrs. Belhnore and one
or two others of the smart crowd were making up a
list of names for a coaching trip through the Catskills.

A Ghost of a Chance 107

Mrs. Bellmore looked over the list for a final censoring.
The name of Terence Kinsolving was there. Mrs.
Bellmore ran her prohibitive pencil lightly through
the name.

"Too sh j !" she murmured, sweetly, in explanation.

XI
JIMMY HAYES AND MURIEL

oUPPER was over, and there had fallen upon the
camp the silence that accompanies the rolling of
corn-husk cigarettes. The water hole shone from the
dark earth like a patch of fallen sky. Coyotes yelped.
Dull thumps indicated the rocking-horse movements
of the hobbled ponies as they moved to fresh grass.
A half-troop of the Frontier Battalion of Texas
Rangers were distributed about the fire.

A well-known sound — the fluttering and scraping
of chaparral against wooden stirrups — came from
the thick brush above the camp. The rangers listened
cautiously. Thev heard a loud and cheerful voice
call out reassuringly:

"Brace up, Muriel, old girl, we're 'most there now!

Been a long ride for ye, ain't it, j T e old antediluvian

handful of animated carpet-tacks? Hey, now, quit

a tryin' to kiss me! Don't hold on to my neck so

tight — this here paint boss ain't any too shore-footed,

let me tell ye. He's liable to dump us both off if

we don't watch out."

J 08

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel 109

Two minutes of waiting brought a tired "paint
pony single-footing into camp. A gangling youth
of twenty lolled in the saddle. Of the "Muriel"
whom he had been addressing, nothing was to be seen.

"Hi, fellows !" shouted the rider cheerfully. "This
here's a letter fer Lieutenant Manning."

He dismounted, unsaddled, dropped the coils of
his stake-rope, and got his hobbles from the saddle-
horn. While Lieutenant Manning, in command, was
reading the letter, the newcomer rubbed solici-
tously at some dried mud in the loops of the hobbles,
showing a consideration for the forelegs of his mount.

"Boys," said the lieutenant, waving his hand to the
rangers, "this is Mr. James Ha3*es. He's a new mem-
ber of the company. Captain McLean sends him down
from El Paso. The boys will see that you have some
supper, Hayes, as soon as you get your pony hobbled."

The recruit was received cordially by the rangers.
Still, they observed him shrewdly and with suspended
judgment. Picking a comrade on the border is done
with ten times the care and discretion with which a
girl chooses a sweetheart. On your "side-kicker's"
nerve, loyalty, aim, and coolness your own life may
depend many times.

After a hearty supper Hayes joined the smokers
about the fire. His appearance did not settle all the
questions in the minds of his brother rangers. They
saw simply a loose, Ian!: youth with tow-coloured,

110 Sires and Sevens

sun-burned hair and a berry-brown, ingenuous face
that wore a quizzical, good-natured smile.

"Fellows," said the new ranger, "Fin goin' to inter-
duce to you a lady friend of mine. Ain't ever heard
anybody call her a beauty, but you'll all admit she's
got some fine points about her. Come along, Muriel P*

He held open the front of his blue flannel shirt.
Out of it crawled a horned frog. A bright red ribbon
was tied jauntily around its spiky neck. It crawled
to its owner's knee and sat there, motionless.

"This here Muriel," said Hayes, with an oratorical
wave of his hand, "has got qualities. She never
talks back, she always stays at home, and she's satis-
fied with one red dress for every day and Sunday,
too."

"Look at that blame insect !" said one of the rang-
ers with a grin. "I've seen plenty of them horny
frogs, but I never knew anybody to have one for a
side-partner. Does the blame thing know you from
anybody else?"

"Take it over there and see," said Haves.

The stumpy little lizard known as the horned frog
is harmless. He has the hideousness of the prehis-
toric monsters whose reduced descendant he is, but he
is gentler than the dove.

The ranger took Muriel from Hayes's knee and
went back to his seat on a roll of blankets. The cap-
tive twisted and clawed and struggled vigorously in

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel 111

his hand. After holding it for a moment or two, the
ranger set it upon the ground. Awkwardly, but
swiftly the frog worked its four oddly moving legs
until it stopped close by Hayes's foot.

"Well, dang my hide!" said the other ranger.
"The little cuss knows you. Never thought them in-
sects had that much sense !"

Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger
camp. He had an endless store of good nature, and
a mild, perennial quality of humour that is well
adapted to camp life. He was never without his
horned frog. In the bosom of his shirt during rides,
on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at
night, the ugly little beast never left him.

Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in
the rural South and West. Unskilled in originating
methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had
hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently.
It had seemed to Jimmy a very funny thing to have
about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a
tame horned frog with a red ribbon around its neck.
As it was a happy idea, why not perpetuate it?

The sentiments existing between Jimmy and the
frog cannot be exactly determined. The capability
of the horned frog for lasting affection is a subject
upon which we have no symposiums. It is easier

112 Sixes and Sevens

to guess Jimmy's feelings. Muriel was his chef
cTceuvre of wit, and as such he cherished her. He
caught flies for her, and shielded her from sudden
northers. Yet his care was half selfish, and when the
time came she repaid him a thousand fold. Other
Muriels have thus overbalanced the light attentions
of other Jimmies.

Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brother-
hood with his comrades. They loved him for his sim-
plicity and drollness, -but there hung above him a
great sword of suspended judgment. To make merry
in camp is not all of a ranger's life. There are horse-
thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down,
bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the
chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the
muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had been "'most
generally a cow-puncher," he said; he was inex-
perienced in ranger methods of warfare. Therefore
the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how
he would stand fire. For, let it be known, the honour
and pride of each ranger company is the individual
bravery of its members.

For two months the border was quiet. The rang-
ers lolled, listless, in camp. And then — bringing joy
to the rusting guardians of the frontier — Sebastiano
Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-
thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began
to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel 113

that Jimmy Hayes would soon have the opportunity
to show his mettle. The rangers patrolled with
alacrity, but Saldar's men were mounted like Lochin-
var, and were hard to catch.

One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted
for supper after a long ride. Their horses stood
panting, with their saddles on. The men were frying
bacon and boiling coffee. Suddenly, out of the brush,
Sebastiano Saldar and his gang dashed upon them
with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced yells. It
was a neat surprise. The rangers swore in annoyed
tones, and got their Winchesters busy ; but the attack
wa* only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican
type. After the florid demonstration the raiders gal-
loped away, yelling, down the river. The rangers
mounted and pursued ; but in less than two miles the
fagged ponies laboured so that Lieutenant Manning
gave the word to abandon the chase and return to
the camp.

Then it was discovered that Jimmy Hayes was
missing. Some one remembered having seen him run
for his pony when the attack began, but no one had
set eyes on him since. Morning came, but no Jimmy.
They searched the country around, oh the theory
that he had been killed or wounded, but without suc-
cess. Then they followed after Saldar's gang, but it
seemed to have disappeared. Manning concluded
that the wily Mexican had recrossed the river after

114 Sixes and Sevens

his theatric farewell. And, indeed, no further dep
dations from him were reported.

This gave the rangers time to nurse a soreness they
had. As had been said, the pride and honour of the
company is the individual bravery of its members.
And now they believed that Jimmy Hayes had turned
coward at the whiz of Mexican bullets. There was
no other deduction. Buck Davis pointed out that not
a shot was fired by Saldar's gang after Jimmy was
seen running for his horse. There was no way for
him to have been shot. No, he had fled from his first
fight, and afterward he would not return, aware
that the scorn of his comrades would be a worse
thing to face than the muzzles of many rifles.

So Manning's detachment of McLean's company.
Frontier Battalion, was gloomy. It was the first
blot on its escutcheon. Never before in the history
of the service had a ranger shown the white feather.
All of them had liked Jimmy Hayes, and that made
it worse.

Days, weeks, and months went by, and still that
little cloud of unforgotten cowardice hung above the
camp.

Ill

Nearly a year afterward — after many camping
grounds and many hundreds of miles guarded and

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel 115

defended — Lieutenant Manning, with almost the
same detachment of men, was sent to a point only a
few miles below their old camp on the river to look
after some smuggling there. One afternoon, while
they were riding through a dense mesquite flat, they
came upon a patch of open hog-wallow prairie. There
they rode upon the scene of an unwritten tragedy.

In a big hog-wallow lay the skeletons of three
Mexicans. Their clothing alone served to identify
them. The largest of the figures had once been
Sebastiano Saldar. His great, costly sombrero,
heavy with gold ornamentation — a hat famous all
along the Rio Grande — lay there pierced by three
bullets. Along the ridge of the hog-wallow rested
the rusting Winchesters of the Mexicans — all point-
ing in the same direction.

The rangers rode in that direction for fifty yards.
There, in a little depression of the ground, with his
rifle still bearing upon the three, lay another skeleton.
It had been a battle of extermination. There was
nothing to identify the solitary defender. His cloth-
ing — such as the elements had left distinguish-
able — seemed to be of the kind that any ranchman or
cowboy might have worn.

"Some cow-puncher," said Manning, "that they
caught out alone. Good boy ! He put up a dandy
scrap before they got him. So that's why we didn't
hear from Don Sebastiano any more !"

116 Sires and Sevens

And then, from beneath the weather-beaten rags of
the dead man, there wriggled out a horned frog with
a faded red ribbon around its neck, and sat upon the
shoulder of its long quiet master. Mutely it told the
story of the untried youth and the swift "paint*
pony — how the}' had outstripped all their comrades
that day in the pursuit of the Mexican raiders, and
how the boy had gone down upholding the honour
of the company.

The ranger troop herded close, and a simultaneous
wild yell arose from their lips. The outburst was at
once a dirge, an apology, an epitaph, and a pa?an of ,
triumph. A strange requiem, you may say, over the
body of a fallen comrade; but if Jimmy Hayes could
have heard it he would have understood.

XII

THE DOOR OF UNREST

I SAT an hour by sun, in the editor's room of the
Montopolis Weekly Bugle. I was the editor.

The saffron rays of the declining sunlight filtered
through the cornstalks in Mica j ah Widdup\s garden-
patch, and cast an amber glory upon my paste-pot.
I sat at the editorial desk in my non-rotary revolving
chair, and prepared my editorial against the oligar-
chies. The room, with its one window* was already a
prey to the twilight. One by one, with my trenchant
sentences, I lopped off the bends of the political
hydra, while I listened, full of kindly peace, to the
home-coming cow-bells and wondered what Mrs. Flan-
agan was going to have for supper.

Then in from the dusky, quiet street there drifted
and perched himself upon a corner of my desk old
Father Time's younger brother. His face was beard-
less and as gnarled as an English walnut. I never
saw clothes such as he wore. Thev would have re-
duced Joseph's coat to a monochrome. But the
colours were not the dyer's. Stains and patches and

the work of sun and rust were responsible for the

117

118 Sixes and Sevens

diversity. On his coarse shoes was the dust, conceiv-
ably, of a thousand leagues. I can describe him
no further, except to say that he was little and
weird and old — old I began to estimate in cen-
turies when I saw him. Yes, and I remember that
there was an odour, a faint odour like aloes, or
possibly like myrrh or leather; and I thought of
museums.

And then I reached for a pad and pencil, for busi-
ness is business, and visits of the oldest inhabitants
are sacred and honourable, requiring to be chronicled.

"I am glad to see you, sir," I said. "I would offer
you a chair, but — you see, sir," 1 went on, *U have
lived in Montopolis only three weeks, and I have not
met many of our citizens." I turned a doubtful eye
upon his dust-stained shoes, and concluded with a
newspaper phrase, "I suppose that you reside in our
midst?"

My visitor fumbled in his raiment, drew forth a
soiled card, and handed it to me. Upon it was
written, in plain but unsteadily formed characters, the
name "Michob Adcr."

"I am glad you called, Mr. Ader," I said. "As
one of our older citizens, you must view with pride
the recent growth and enterprise of Montopolis.
Among other improvements, I think I can promise
that the town will now be provided with a live, enter-
prising newspa "

The Door of Unrest 119

"Do ye know the name on that card? 9 ' asked my
fallcr, interrupting me.

"It is not a familiar one to me," I said.

Again he visited the depths of his ancient vestments.
This time he brought out a torn leaf of some book or
journal, brown and flimsy with age. The heading
of the page was the Turkish Spy in old-style type;
the printing upon it was this :

"There is a man come to Paris in this year 1643
who pretends to have lived these sixteen hundred years.
He says of himself that he was a shoemaker in Jeru-
salem at the time of the Crucifixion ; that his name is
Michob Ader; and that when Jesus, the Christian
Messias, was condemned by Pontius Pilate, the
Roman president, he paused to rest while bearing his
cross to the place of crucifixion before the door of
Michob Ader. The shoemaker struck Jesus with his
fist, saying: 'Go; why tarriest thou?' The Messias
answered him: 'I indeed am going; but thou shalt
tarry until I come'; thereby condemning him to live
until the day of judgment. He lives forever, but
at the end of every hundred years he falls into a fit
or tranco, on recovering from which he finds himself
in the same state of youth in which he was when
Jesus suffered, being then about thirty years of age.

"Such is the story of the Wandering Jew, as told
by Michob Ader, who relates " Here the print-
ing ended.

120 Sixes and Sevens

I must have muttered aloud something to myself
about the Wandering Jew, for the old man spake up,
bitterly and loudly.

" 'Tis a lie,' said he, "like nine tenths of what ye
call history. 'Tis a Gentile I am, and no Jew. I am
after footing it out of Jerusalem, my son ; but if that
makes me a Jew, then everything that comes out of
a bottle is babies' milk. Ye have my name on the
card ye hold ; and ye have read the bit of paper they
call the Turkish Spy that printed the news when I
stepped into their office on the 12th day of June, in
the year 1643, just as I have called upon ye to-day."

I laid down my pencil and pad. Clearly it would
not do. Here was an item for the local column of
the Bugle that — but it would not do. Still, frag-
ments of the impossible "personal" began to flit
through my conventionalized brain. "Uncle Michob
is as spry on his legs as a young chap of only a thou-
sand or so." "Our venerable caller relates with pride

that George Wash no, Ptolemy the Great — once

dandled him on his knee at his father's house.'* "Un-
cle Michob says that our wet spring was nothing in
comparison with the dampness that ruined the crops

around Mount Ararat when he was a boy " But

no, no — it would not do.

I was trying to think of some conversational subject
with which to interest my visitor, and was hesitating
between walking matches and the Pliocene age, when

The Door of Unrest 121

the old man suddenly began to weep poignantly and
distressfully.

"Cheer up, Mr. Ader," I said, a little awkwardly ;
"this matter may blow over in a few hundred years
more. There has already been a decided reaction
in favour of Judas Iscariot and Colonel Burr and the
celebrated violinist, Signor Nero. This is the age of
whitewash. You must not allow yourself to become
down-hearted."

Unknowingly, I had struck a chord. The old man
blinked belligerently through his senile tears.

" Tis time," he said, "that the liars be doin' justice
to somebody. Yer historians are no more than a
pack of old women gabblin' at a wake. A finer man
than the Imperor Nero niver wore sandals. Man, I
was at the burnin* of Rome. I knowed the Imperor
well, for in them days I was a well-known char-acter.
In thim daj r s they had rayspect for a man that lived
forever.

"But 'twas of the Imperor Nero I was goin' to tell
ye. I struck into Rome, up the Appian Way, on the
night of July the 16th, the year 64. I had just
stepped down by way of Siberia and Afghanistan;
and one foot of me had a frost-bite, and the other a
blister burned by the sand of the desert ; and I was
feelin' a bit blue from doin' patrol duty from the North
Pole down to the Last Chance corner in Patngonia, and
bein* miscalled a Jew in the bargain. Well, I'm tellin*

ii i'

122 Sixes and Sevens

ye I was passin' the Circus Maximus, and it was dark
as pitch over the way, and then I heard somebody
sing out, 'Is that you, Michob?'

"Over ag'inst the wall, hid out amongst a pile of
barrels and old dry-goods boxes, was the Imperor
Nero wid his togy wrapped around his toes, smokin'
a long, black segar.

Have one, Michob?' says he.
; None of the weeds for me,' says I — 'nayther pipe
nor segar. What's the use,' says I, 'of smokin' when
ye've not got the ghost of a chance of killin' yeself by
doin'it?'

" 'True for ye, Michob Ader, my perpetual Jew,*
says the Imperor ; 'yc're not always wandering. Sure,
'tis danger gives the spice of our pleasures — next
to their bein' forbidden.'

"'And for what,' says I, 'do ye smoke be night in
dark places widout even a cinturion in plain clothes
to attend ye?'

"'Have ye ever heard, Michob,' says the Imperor,
'of prcdestinarianism?'

" 'I've had the cousin of it,' says I. 'I've been on
the trot with pedcstrianism for many a year, and more
to come, as ye well know.'

"'The longer word,' says me friend Nero, 'is the
tachin' of this new sect of people they call the
Christians. 'Tis them that's raysponsible for me
smokin' be night in holes and corners of the dark.'

The Door of Unrest 123

"And then I sets down and takes off a shoe and rubs
me foot that is frosted, and the Impcror tells me about
it. It seems that since I passed that way before, the
Imperor had mandamused the Impress wid a divorce
suit, and Misses Poppa?a, a calibrated lady, was in-
gaged, widout riferenccs, as housekeeper at the palace.
'AH in one day,' says the Imperor, 'she puts up new
lace windy-curtains in the palace and joins the anti-
tobacco society, and whin I feels the need of a smoke
I must be after sneakin' out to these piles of lumber
in the dark.' So there in the dark me and the Imperor
sat, and I told him of me travels. And when they
say the Imperor was an incindiary, they lie. 'Twas
that night the fire started that burnt the city. *Tis
my opinion that it began from a stump of segar that
he threw down among the boxes. And 'tis a lie that
he fiddled. He did all he could for six days to stop
it, sir."

And now I detected a new flavour to Mr. Michob
Ader. It had not been myrrh or balm or hyssop that
I had smelled. The emanation was the odour of bad
whiskey — and, worse still, of low comedy — the sort
that small humorists manufacture by clothing the
grave and reverend things of legend and history in
the vulgar, topical frippery that passes for a certain
kind of wit. Michob Ader as an impostor, claiming
nineteen hundred years, and playing his part with the
decency of respectable lunacy, I could endure ; but as

124 Sixes and Sevens

a tedious wag, cheapening his egregious story with
song- book levity, his importance as an entertainer
grew less.

And then, as if he suspected my thoughts, he sud-
denly shifted his key.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he whined, "but sometimes
I get a little mixed in my head. I am a very old man ;
and it is hard to remember every thing."

I knew that he was right, and that I should not try
to reconcile him with Roman history ; so I asked for
news concerning other ancients with whom he had
walked familiar.

Above my desk hung an engraving of Raphael's
cherubs. You could yet make out their forms, though
the dust blurred their outlines strangely.

"Ye calls them 'cher-rubs'," cackled the old man.
"Babes, ye fancy they are, with wings. And there's
one wid legs and a bow and arrow that ye call Cupid
— I know where they was found. The great-great-
grcat-grandfather of thim all was a billy-goat. / Bern*
an editor, sir, do ye happen to know where Solomon's
Temple stood?"

I fancied that it was in — in Persia? Well, I did
not know.

" 'Tis not in history nor in the Bible where it was.
But I saw it, meself. The first pictures of cher-rubs
and cupids was sculptured upon thim walls and pillars.
Two of the biggest, sir, stood in the adytum to form

The Door of Unrest 125

the baldachin over the Ark. But the wings of thim
sculptures was in Undid for horns. And the faces was
the faces of goats. Ten thousand goats there was in
and about the temple. And your cher-rubs was billy-
goats in the days of King Solomon, but the painters
misconstrued the horns into wings.

"And I knew Tamerlane, the lame Timour, sir,
very well. I saw him at Keghut and at Zaranj.
He was a little man no larger than ycrself, with hair
the colour of an amber pipe stem. They buried him
at Samarkand. I was at the wake, sir. Oh, he
was a fine-built man in his coffin, six feet long, with
black whiskers to his face. And I see 'em throw
turnips at the Imperor Vispacian in Africa. All
over the world I have tramped, sir, without the body
of me findin' any rest. 'Twas so commanded. I saw
Jerusalem destroyed, and Pompeii go up in the fire-
works ; and I was at the coronation of Charlemagne
and the lynchin' of Joan of Arc. And everywhere I
go there conies storms and revolutions and plagues
and fires. 'Twas so commanded. Ye have heard of
the Wandering Jew. *Tis all so, except that divil
a bit am I Jew. But history lies, as I have told ye.
Are ye quite sure, sir, that ye haven't a drop of
whiskey convenient? Ye well know that I have many
miles of walking before me."

"I have none," said I, "and, if you please, I am
about to leave for my supper."

126 Sixes and Sevens

I pushed my chair back crcakingly. This ancient
landlubber was becoming as great an affliction as any
cross-bowed mariner. lie shook a musty effluvium
from his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and
went on with his insufferable nonsense.

"I wouldn't mind it so much," he complained, "if
it wasn't for the work I must do on Good Fridays.
Ye know about Pontius Pilate, sir, of course. His
body, whin he killed himself, was pitched into a lake
on the Alps mountains. Now, listen to the job that
'tis mine to perform on the night of ivery Good Fri-
day. The ould divil goes down in the pool and drags
up Pontius, and the water is bilin' and spewin' like a
wash pot. And the ould divil sets the body on top of
a throne on the rocks, and thin comes me share of the
job. Oh, sir, ye would pity me thin — ye would pray
for the poor Wandering Jew that niver was a Jew if
ye could see the horror of the thing that I must do.
*Tis I that must fetch a bowl of water and kneel down
before it till it washes its hands. I declare to ye that
Pontius Pilate, a man dead two hundred years,
dragged up with the lake slime coverin' him and fishes
wrigglin' inside of him widout eyes, and in the discomr
position of the body, sits there, sir, and washes his
hands in the bowl I hold for him on Good Fridays.
'Twas so commanded."

Clearly, the matter had progressed far beyond the
scope of the Bugle's local column. There might hare

The Door of Unrest 127

been employment here for the alienist or for those
who circulate the pledge ; but I had had enough of it.
I got up, and repeated that I must go.

At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk,
and burst again into distressful weeping. Whatever
it was about, I said to myself that his grief was
genuine.

"Come now, Mr. Ader," I said, soothingly ; "what
is the matter?"

The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs :
"Because I would not . . . let the poor Christ
. . • rest . . • upon the step."

His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable
answer ; yet the effect of it upon him scarcely merited
disrespect. But I knew nothing that might assuage
it ; and I told him once more that both of us should
be leaving the office at once.

Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishev-
elled desk, and permitted me to half lift him to the
floor. The gale of his grief had blown away his
words ; his freshet of tears had soaked away the
crust of his grief. Reminiscence died in him — at
least, the coherent part of it.

" 'Twas me that did it," he muttered, as I led him
toward the door — "me, the shoemaker of Jerusa-
lem."

I got him to the sidewalk, and in the augmented
light I saw that his face was seared and lined and

128 Sixes and Sevens

warped by a sadness almost incredibly the product of
a single lifetime.

And then high up in the firmamental darkness we
heard the clamant cries of some great, passing birds.
My Wandering Jew lifted his hand, with side-tilted
head.

"The Seven Whistlers 1" he said, as one introduces
well-known friends.

"Wild geese," said I ; "but I confess that their num-
ber is beyond mc."

"They follow me everywhere," he said. " 'Twas so
commanded. What ye hear is the souls of the seven
Jews that helped with the Crucifixion. Sometime*
they're plovers and sometimes geese, but yell find
them always flyin' where I go."

I stood, uncertain how to take my leave. I looked
down the street, shuffled my feet, looked back again
— and felt my hair rise. The old man had disap-
peared.

And then my capillaries relaxed, for I dimly saw
him footing it away through the darkness. But he
walked so swiftly and silently and contrary to the gait
promised by his age that my composure wai not all
restored, though I knew not why.

That night I was foolish enough to take down gonte
dust-covered volumes from my modest shelves. I
searched "Hermippus Redivvus" and "SalathieP*
and the "Fepys Collection" in vain. And then in a

The Door of Unrest 129

book called "The Citizen of the World," and in one
two centuries old, I came upon what I desired. Mi-
chob Ader had indeed come to Paris in the year 1643,
and related to the Turkish Spy an extraordinary
story. He claimed to be the Wandering Jew, and
that

But here I fell asleep, for my editorial duties had
not been light that day.

Judge Hoover was the Bugle's candidate for con-
gress. Having to confer with him, I sought his home
early the next morning ; and we walked together down
town through a little street with which I was un-
familiar.

"Did you ever hear of Michob Ader?" I asked him,
smiling.

"Why, yes," said the judge. "And that reminds
me of my shoes he has for mending. Here is his
shop now."

Judge Hoover stepped into a dingy, small shop.
I looked up at the sign, and saw "Mike O'Bader,
Boot and Shoe Maker," on it. Some wild geese
passed above, honking clearly. I scratched my ear
and frowned, and then trailed into the shop.

There sat my Wandering Jew on his shoemaker's
bench, trimming a half-sole. He was drabWed with
dew, grass-stained, unkempt, and miserable; and on
his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, the
problematic sorrow, the esoteric woe, that had been

130 Sixes and Sevens

written there by nothing less, it seemed, than the sty*
lus of the centuries.

Judge Hoover inquired kindly concerning his shoes.
The old shoemaker looked up, and spoke sanely
enough. He had been ill, he said, for a few days.
The next day the shoes would be ready. He looked
at me, and I could see that I had no place in his
memory. So out we went, and on our way.

"Old Mike," remarked the candidate, "has been on
one of his sprees. He gets crazy drunk regularly
once a month. But he's a good shoemaker."

"What is his history ?" I inquired.

"Whiskey," epitomized Judge Hoover. "That ex*
plains him."

I was silent, but I did not accept the explanation.
And so, when I had the chance, I asked old man Sel-
lers, who browsed daily on my exchanges.

"Mike O'Bader," said he, "was makin' shoes in
Montopolis when I come here goin' on fifteen year
ago. I guess whiskey's his trouble. Once a month
he gets off the track, and stays so a week. He's got
a rigmarole somcthin' about his bein' a Jew pedler
that he tells ev'rybody. Nobody won't listen to him
any more. When he's sober he ain't sich a fool —
he's got a sight of books in the back room of his shop
that he reads. I guess you can lay all his trouble to
whiskey."

But again I would not. Not yet was my Wander*

The Boor of Unrest 131

ing Jew rightly construed for me. I trust that
women may not be allowed a title to all the curiosity
in the world. So when Montopolis's oldest inhabi-
tant (some ninety score years younger than Michob
Ader) dropped in to acquire promulgation in print, I
siphoned his perpetual trickle of reminiscence in the
direction of the uninterpreted maker of shoes.

Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Mon-
topolis, bound in butternut.

"O'Bader," he quavered, "come here in '69. He
was the first shoemaker in the place. Folks generally
considers him crazy at times now. But he don't
harm nobody. I s'pose drinkin' upset his mind —
yes, drinkin' very likely done it. It's a powerful bad
thing, drinkin'. I'm an old, old man, sir, and I never
see no good in drinkin'."

I felt disappointment. I was willing to admit drink
in the case of my shoemaker, but I preferred it as a
recourse instead of a cause. Why had he pitched upon
his perpetual, strange note of the Wandering Jew?
Why his unutterable grief during his aberration?
I could not yet accept whiskey as an explanation.

"Did Mike O'Bader ever have a great loss or trouble
of any kind?" I asked.

"Lemme see! About thirty year ago there was
somethin' of the kind, I recollect. Montopolis, sir,
in them days used to be a mighty strict place.

"Well, Mike O'Bader had a daughter then — a

182 Sixes and Sevens

right pretty girl. She was too gay a sort for Mon-
topolis, so one day she slips off to another town and
runs away with a circus. It was two years before she
comes back, all fixed up in fine clothes and rings and
jewellery, to see Mike. He wouldn't have nothin'
to do with her, so she stays around town awhile, any-
way. I reckon the men folks wouldn't have raised no
objections, but the women egged 'em on to order her
to leave town. But she had plenty of spunky and
told 'em to mind their own business.

"So one night they decided to run her away. A
crowd of men and women drove her out of her house,
and chased her with sticks and stones. She run to
her father's door, callin' for help. Mike opens it,
and when he sees who it is he hits her with his fist and
knocks her down and shuts the door.

"And then the crowd kept on chunkin' her till she
run clear out of town. And the next day they finds
her drowned dead in Hunter's mill pond. I mind it
all now. That was thirty year ago/*

I leaned back in my non-rotary revolving chair and
nodded gently, like a mandarin, at my paste-pot.

"When old Mike has a spell," went on Uncle Abner,
tepidly garrulous, "he thinks he's the Wanderin' Jew.*

"He is," said I, nodding away.

And Uncle Abner cackled insinuatingly at the edi-
tor's remark, for he was expecting at least a "stick-
fol" hi tha "Personal Notes" of the Bugle.

XIII

THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES

WHEN Major Pendleton Talbot, of Mobile, sir,
and his daughter, Miss Lydia Talbot, came to Wash-
ington to reside, they selected for a boarding place a
house that stood fifty yards back from one of the
quietest avenues. It was an old-fashioned brick
building, with a portico upheld by tall white pillars.
The yard was shaded by stately locusts and elms,
and a catalpa tree in season rained its pink and white
blossoms upon the grass. Rows of high box bushes
lined the fence and walks. It was the Southern style
and aspect of the place that pleased the eyes of the
Talbots.

In this pleasant, private boarding house they en-
gaged rooms, including a study for Major Talbot,
who was adding the finishing chapters to his book,
"Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Alabama Army,
Bench, and Bar."

Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The pres-
ent day had little interest or excellence in his eyes.
His mind lived in that period before the Civil War,

when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of fine

133

184 Sixes and Sevens

cotton land and the slaves to till them; when the
family mansion was the scene of princely hospitality,
and drew its guests from the aristocracy of the South.
Out of that period he had brought all of its old pride
and scruples of honour, and antiquated and punctil-
ious politeness, and (you would think) its wardrobe.

Such clothes were surely never made within fifty
years. The major was tall, but whenever he made
that wonderful, archaic genuflexion he called a bow,
the corners of his frock coat swept the floor. That
garment was a surprise even to Washington, which
has long ago ceased to shy at the frocks and broad-
brimmed hats of Southern congressmen. One of the
boarders christened it a "Father Hubbard," and
it certainly was high in the waist and full in the
skirt.

But the major, with all his queer clothes, his im-
mense area of plaited, ravelling shirt bosom, and the
little black string tie with the bow always slipping on
one side, both was smiled at and liked in Mrs. Varde-
man's select boarding house. Some of the young de-
partment clerks would often "string him," as they
called it, getting him started upon the subject dearest
to him — the traditions and history of his beloved
Southland. During his talks he would quote freely
from the "Anecdotes and Reminiscences." But they
were very careful not to let him see their designs, for
in spite of his sixty-eight j T ears, he could make the

The Duplicity of Hargraves 135

boldest of them uncomfortable under the steady re-
gard of his piercing gray eyes.

Miss Lydia was a plump, little old maid of thirty-
five, with smoothly drawn, tightly twisted hair that
made her look still older. Old fashioned, too, she
was ; but ante-bellum glory did not radiate from her
as it did from the major. She possessed a thrifty
common sense; and it was she who handled the fi-
nances of the family, and met all comers when there
were bills to pay. The major regarded board bills
and wash bills as contemptible nuisances. They kept
coming in so persistently and so often. Why, the
major wanted to know, could they not be filed and
paid in a lump sum at some convenient period — say
when the "Anecdotes and Reminiscences" had been
published and paid for? Miss Lydia would calmly go
on with her sewing and say, "We'll pay as we go as
long as the money lasts, and then perhaps they'll
have to lump it."

Most of Mrs. Vardeman's boarders were away dur-
ing the day, being nearly all department clerks and
business men ; but there was one of them who was
about the house a great deal from morning to night.
This was a young man named Henry Hopkins Har-
graves — every one in the house addressed him by
his full name — who was engaged at one of the popular
vaudeville theatres. Vaudeville has risen to such a
respectable plane in the last few years, and Mr. Har-

156 Sixes and Sevens

graves was such a modest and well-mannered person,
that Mrs. Vardeman could find no objection to en-
rolling him upon her list of boarders.

At the theatre Hargraves was known as an all-
round dialect comedian, having a large repertoire of
German, Irish, Swede, and black-face specialties. But
Mr. Hargraves was ambitious, and often spoke of his
great desire to succeed in legitimate comedy.

This young man appeared to conceive a strong
fancy for Major Talbot. Whenever that gentleman
would begin his Southern reminiscences, or repeat
some of the liveliest of the anecdotes, Hargraves could
always be found, the most attentive among his
listeners.

For a time the major showed an inclination to dis-
courage the advances of the "play actor," as he pri-
vately termed him ; but soon the young man's agree-
able manner and indubitable appreciation of the old
gentleman's stories completely won him over.

It was not long before the two were like old chums.
The major set apart each afternoon to read to him the
manuscript of his book. During the anecdotes Har-
graves never failed to laugh at exactly the right point.
The major was moved to declare to Miss Lydia one
day that young Hargraves possessed remarkable per-
ception and a gratifying respect for the old regime.
And when it came to talking of those old cUys — if

The Duplicity of Hargraves 137

Major Talbot liked to talk, Mr. Hargraves was en-
tranced to listen.

Like almost all old people who talk of the past,
the major loved to linger over details. In describing
the splendid, almost royal, days of the old planters,
he would hesitate until he had recalled the name of the
Negro who held his horse, or the exact date of certain
minor happenings, or the number of bales of cotton
raised in such a year; but Hargraves never grew
impatient or lost interest. On the contrary, he would
advance questions on a variety of subjects connected
with the life of that time, and he never failed to
extract ready replies.

The fox hunts, the 'possum suppers, the hoe downs
and jubilees in the Negro quarters, the banquets in
the plantation-house hall, when invitations went for
fifty miles around ; the occasional feuds with the neigh-
bouring gentry ; the major's duel with Rathbone Cul-
bertson about Kitty Chalmers, who afterward married
a Thwaite of South Carolina ; and private yacht races
for fabulous sums on Mobile Bay ; the quaint beliefs,
improvident habits, and loyal virtues of the old slaves
— all these were subjects that held both the major
and Hargraves absorbed for hours at a time.

Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be
coming upstairs to his room after his turn at the
theatre was over, the major would appear at the door
of his stud/ and beckon archly to him. Going in,

138 Sixes and Sevens

Hargraves would find a little table set with a decanter,
sugar bowl, fruit, and a big bunch of fresh green mint.

"It occurred to me," the major would begin — he
was always ceremonious — "that perhaps you might
have found your duties at the — at your place of occu-
pation — sufficiently arduous to enable you, Mr. Har-
graves, to appreciate what the poet might well have
had in his mind when he wrote, Hired Nature's sweet
restorer,' — one of our Southern juleps."

It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him
make it. He took rank among artists when he began,
and he never varied the process. With what delicacy
he bruised the mint ; with what exquisite nicety he es-
timated the ingredients ; with what solicitous care he
capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing
against the dark green fringe ! And then the hospi-
tality and grace with which he offered it, after the
selected oat straws had been plunged into its tinkling
depths !

After about four months in Washington, Miss
Lydia discovered one morning that they were almost
without money. The "Anecdotes and Reminiscences'*
was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the
collected gems of Alabama sense and wit. The rental
of a small house which they still owned in Mobile was
two months in arrears. Their board money for the
month would be due in three days. Miss Lydia called
her father to a consultation.

u
u

The Duplicity of Hargraves 139

"No money ?" said he with a surprised look. "It
is quite annoying to be called on so frequently for
these petty sums. Really, I "

The major searched his pockets. He found only
a two-dollar bill, which he returned to his vest pocket.
I must attend to this at once, Lydia," he said.
Kindly get me my umbrella and I will go down town
immediately. The congressman from our district,
General Fulghum, assured me some days ago that he
would use his influence to get my book published at
an early date. I will go to his hotel at once and see
what arrangement has been made."

With a sad little smile Miss Lydia watched him
button his "Father Hubbard" and depart, pausing
at the door, as he always did, to bow profoundly.

That evening, at dark, he returned. It seemed that
Congressman Fulghum had seen the publisher who
had the major's manuscript for reading. That per-
son had said that if the anecdotes, etc., were carefully
pruned down about one half, in order to eliminate the
sectional and class prejudice with which the book
was dyed from end to end, he might consider its pub-
lication.

The major was in a white heat of anger, but re-
gained his equanimity, according to his code of
manners, as soon as he was in Miss Lydia's pres-
ence.

"We must have money," said Miss Lydia, with a

140 Sixes and Sevens

little wrinkle above her nose. "Give me the two
dollars, and I will telegraph to Uncle Ralph for some
to-night."

The major drew a small envelope from his upper
vest pocket and tossed it on the table.

"Perhaps it was injudicious," he said mildly, "but
the sum was so merely nominal that I bought tickets
to the theatre to-night. It's a new war drama, Lydia.
I thought you would be pleased to witness its first
production in Washington. I am told that the South
has very fair treatment in the play. I confess I
should like to see the performance myself."

Miss Lydia threw up her hands in silent despair.

Still, as the tickets were bought, they might as well
be used. So that evening, as they sat in the theatre
listening to the lively overture, even Miss Lydia was
minded to relegate their troubles, for the hour, to
second place. The major, in spotless linen, with his
extraordinary coat showing only where it was closely
buttoned, and his white hair smoothly roached, looked
really fine and distinguished. The curtain went up
on the first act of "A Magnolia Flower," revealing a
typical Southern plantation scene. Major Talbot
betrayed some interest.

"Oh, sec !" exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm*
and pointing to her programme.

The major put on his glasses and read the line in
the orrt of characters that her finger indicated.

The Duplicity of Hargraves 141

Col. Webster Calhoun. . . . II. Hopkins Har-
graves.

"It's our Mr. Hargraves," said Miss Lydia. "It
must be his first appearance in what he calls 'the le-
gitimate. 9 I'm so glad for him."

Not until the second act did Col. Webster Cal-
houn appear upon the stage. When he made his
entry Major Talbot gave an audible snift', glared at
him, and seemed to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered
a little, ambiguous squeak and crumpled her pro-
gramme in her hand. For Colonel Calhoun was made
up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one pea does
another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the
ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled,
wide, ravelling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow
nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated.
And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin
to the major's supposed to be unparalleled coat.
High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted,
hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment
could have been designed from no other pattern.
From then on, the major and Miss Lydia sat be-
witched, and saw the counterfeit presentment of a
haughty Talbot "dragged," as the major afterward
expressed it, "through the slanderous mire of a cor-
rupt stage."

Mr. Hargraves had used his opportunities well.
He had caught the major's little idiosyncrasies of

142 Sixes and Sevens

speech, accent, and intonation and his pompous court-
liness to perfection — exaggerating all to the purpose
of the stage. When he performed that marvellous
bow that the major fondly imagined to be the pink
of all salutations, the audience sent forth a sudden
round of hearty applause.

Miss Lydia sat immovable, not daring to glance
toward her father. Sometimes her hand next to him
would be laid against her check, as if to conceal the
smile which, in spite of her disapproval, she could not
entirely suppress.

The culmination of Hargravcs's audacious imitation
took place in the third act. The scene is where Colo-
nel Calhoun entertains a few of the neighbouring
planters in his "den."

Standing at a table in the centre of the stage, with
his friends grouped about him, he delivers that inimi-
table, rambling, character monologue so famous in
**A Magnolia Flower," at the same time that he
deftly makes juleps for the party.

Major Talbot, sitting quietly, but white with in-
dignation, heard his best stories retold, his pet theories
and hobbies advanced and expanded, and the dream
of the "Anecdotes and Reminiscences" served, ex-
aggerated and garbled. His favourite narrative —
that of his duel with Rathbone Culbcrtson — was not
omitted, and it was delivered with more fire, egotism,
and gusto than the major himself put into it.

The Duplicity of Hargraves 148

The monologue concluded with a quaint, delicious,
witty little lecture on the art of concocting a julep,
illustrated by the act. Here Major Talbot's delicate
but showy science was reproduced to a hair's breadth

— from his dainty handling of the fragrant weed — •
"the one-thousandth part of a grain too much pres-
sure, gentlemen, and you extract the bitterness, in-
stead of the aroma, of this heaven-bestowed plant"

— to his solicitous selection of the oaten straws.

At the close of the scene the audience raised a tu-
multuous roar of appreciation. The portrayal of the
type was so exact, so sure and thorough, that the
leading characters in the play were forgotten. After
repeated calls, Hargraves came before the curtain and
bowed, his rather boyish face bright and flushed with
the knowledge of success.

At last Miss Lydia turned and looked at the major.
His thin nostrils were working like the gills of a fish.
He laid both shaking hands upon the arms of his chair
to rise.

"We will go, Lydia," he said, chokingly. "This
is an abominable — desecration."

Before he could rise, she pulled him back into his
seat.

"We will stay it out," she declared. "Do you want
to advertise the copy by exhibiting the original coat?"
So they remained to the end.

Hargraves's success must have kept him up late

144 Sires and Sevens

that night, for neither at the breakfast nor at the
dinner table did he appear.

About three in the afternoon he tapped at the door
of Major Talbot's study. The major opened it, and
Hargraves walked in with his hands full of the morn-
ing papers — too full of his triumph to notice any-
thing unusual in the major's demeanour.

"I put it all over 'cm last night, major, 5 ' he began
exultantly. "I had my inning, and, I think, scored.
Here's what the Post says:

His conception and portrayal of the old-time Soutn-
ern. colonel, with his absurd grandiloquence, his
eccentric garb, his quaint idioms and phrases, his
moth-eaten pride of family, and his really kind heart,
fastidious sense of honour, and lovable simplicity, is
the best delineation of a character role on the boards
to-day. The coat worn by Colonel Calhoun is itself
nothing less than an evolution of genius. Air. Har-
graves has captured his public.

"How does that sound, major, for a first nighter?**

"I had the honour" — the major's voice soundec?
ominously frigid — "of witnessing your very remark-
able performance, sir, last night."

Hargraves looked disconcerted.

"You were there? I didn't know you ever — I
didn't know you cared for the theatre. Oh, I say,
Major Talbot," he exclaimed frankly, "don't you be
offended. I admit I did get a lot of pointers from you

The Duplicity of Hargraves 145

that helped me out wonderfully in the part. But
it's a type, you know — not individual. The way the
audience caught on shows that. Half the patrons of
that theatre are Southerners. They recognized
it."

"Mr. Hargraves," said the major, who had re-
mained standing, "you have put upon me an unpar-
donable insult. You have burlesqued my person,
grossly betrayed my confidence, and misused my hos-
pitality. If I thought you possessed the faintest con-
ception of what is the sign manual of a gentleman,
or what is due one, I would call you out, sir, old as I
am. I will ask you to leave the room, sir."

The actor appeared to be slightly bewildered, and
seemed hardly to take in the full meaning of the old
gentleman's words.

"I am truly sorry you took offence," he said regret-
fully. "Up here we don't look at things just as you
people do. I know men who would buy out half the
house to have their personality put on the stage so
the public would recognize it."

"They are not from Alabama, sir," said the major
haughtily.

"Perhaps not. I have a pretty good memory,
major; let me quote a few lines from your book. In
response to a toast at a banquet given in — Milledge-
ville, I believe — you uttered, and intend to have
printed, these words :

146 Sires and Sevens

The Northern man is utterly without sentiment or
warmth except in so far as the feelings may be turned
to his own commercial profit. He will suffer without
resentment any imputation cast upon the honour of
himself or his loved ones that docs not bear with it
the consequence of pecuniary loss. In his charity,
he gives with a liberal hand; but it must be heralded
with the trumpet and chronicled in brass.

"Do you think that picture is fairer than the one
you saw of Colonel Calhoun last night?"

"The description," said the major frowning, "is
— not without grounds. Some exag — latitude must
be allowed in public speaking."

"And in public acting," replied Hargraves.

"That is not the point," persisted the major, un-
relenting. "It was a personal caricature, I posi-
tively decline to overlook it, sir."

"Major Talbot," said Hargraves, with a winning
smile, "I wish you would understand me. I want you
to know that I never dreamed of insulting you. In
my profession, all life belongs to me. I take what"
I want, and what I can, and return it over the foot-
lights. Now, if you will, let's let it go at that. I
came in to see you about something else. We've been
pretty good friends for some months, and I'm going
to take the risk of offending you again. I know you
are hard up for money — never mind how I found
out ; a boarding house is no place to keep such matters

The Duplicity of Hargraves 147

secret — and I want you to let me help you out of the
pinch. I've been there often enough myself. I've
been getting a fair salary all the season, and I've
saved some money. You're welcome to a couple hun-
dred — or even more — until you get "

"Stop!" commanded the major, with his arm out-
stretched. "It seems that my book didn't lie, after
all. You think your money salve will heal all the
hurts of honour. Under no circumstances would I
accept a loan from a casual acquaintance; and as to
you, sir, I would starve before I would consider your
insulting offer of a financial adjustment of the circum-
stances we have discussed. I beg to repeat my re-
quest relative to your quitting the apartment."

Hargraves took his departure without another
word. He also left the house the same day, moving,
as Mrs. Vardcman explained at the supper table,
nearer the vicinity of the down-town theatre, where
"A Magnolia Flower" was booked for a week's run.

Critical was the situation with Major Talbot and
Miss Lydia. There was no one in Washington to
whom the major's scruples allowed him to apply for a
loan. Miss Lydia wrote a letter to Uncle Ralph, but
it was doubtful whether that relative's constricted
affairs would permit him to furnish help. The major
was forced to make an apologetic address to Mrs.
Vardeman regarding the delayed payment for board,

148 Sires and Sevens

referring to "delinquent rentals" and "delayed re-
mittances" in a rather confused strain.

Deliverance came from an entirely unexpected
source.

Late one afternoon the door maid came up and
announced an old coloured man who wanted to see
Major Talbot. The major asked that he be sent up
to his study. Soon an old darkey appeared in the
doorway, with his hat in hand, bowing, and scraping
with one clumsy foot. He was quite decently dressed
in a baggy suit of black. His big, coarse shoes shone
with a metallic lustre suggestive of stove polish.
His bushy wool was gray — almost white. After
middle life, it is difficult to estimate the age of a Negro.
This one might have seen as many years as had Major
Talbot.

"I be bound you don't know me, Mars' Pendleton,"
were his first words.

The major rose and came forward at the old, famil-
iar style of address. It was one of the old plantation
darkeys without a doubt; but they had been widely
scattered, and he could not recall the voice or face.

"I don't believe I do," he said kindly — "unless you
will assist my memory."

"Don't you 'member Cindy's Mose, Mars' Pendle-
ton, what 'migrated 'mediately after de war?"

"Wait a moment," said the major, rubbing his
forehead with the tips of his fingers. He loved to re-

The Duplicity of Har graves 149

call everything connected with those beloved days,
"Cindy's Mose," he reflected. "You worked among
the horses — breaking the colts. Yes, I remember
now. After the surrender, you took the name of — -
don't prompt me — Mitchell, and went to the West
— to Nebraska."

"Y'assir, yassir," — the old man's face stretched
with a delighted grin — "dat's him, dat's it. Ncw-
braska. Dat's me — Mose Mitchell. Old Uncle
Mose Mitchell, dey calls me now. Old mars', your
pa, gimme a pah of dem mule colts when I lef fur to
staht me goin' with. You 'member dem colts, Mars'
Pendleton?"

"I don't seem to recall the colts," said the major.
"You know I was married the first year of the war and
living at the old Follinsbee place. But sit down, sit
down, Uncle Mose. I'm glad to see you. I hope you
have prospered."

Uncle Mose took a chair and laid his hat carefully
on the floor beside it.

"Yassir; of late I done mouty famous. When I
first got to Xewbraska, dey folks come all roun' me to
see dem mule colts. Dey ain't see no mules like dem
in Ncwbraska. I sold dem mules for three hundred
dollars. Y'assir — three hundred.

"Den I open a blacksmith shop, suh, and made some
money and bought some Ian'. Me and my old 'oman
done raised up seb'm chillun, and all doin 9 well 'cept

150 Sires and Sevens

two of 'em what died. Fo' year ago a railroad come
along and staht a town slam ag'inst my lan% and, suh,
Mars 9 Pendleton, Uncle Mose am worth leb'm thou-
sand dollars in money, property, and lan\"

"I'm glad to hear it," said the major heartily.
"Glad to hear it."

"And dat little baby of yo'n, Mars' Pendleton —
one what you name Miss Lyddy — I be bound dat
little tad done growed up tell nobody wouldn't know
her."

The major stopped to the door and called : "Lydia,
dear, will you come?"

Miss Lydia, looking quite grown up and a little
worried, came in from her room.

"Dar, now! What'd I tell you? I knowed dat
baby done be plum growed up. You don't 'member
Uncle Mosc, child?"

"This is Aunt Cindy's Mose, Lydia," explained the
major. "He left Sunnymead for the West when you
were two years old."

"Well," said Miss Lydia, "I can hardly be expected
to remember you, Uncle Mose, at that age. And, as
you say, I'm 'plum growed up,' and was a blessed long
time ago. But Fm glad to see you, even if I can't
remember you."

And she was. And so was the major. Something
alive and tangible had come to link them with the
happy past. The three sat and talked over the olden

The Duplicity of Hargraves 151

times, the major and Uncle Mose correcting or
prompting each other as they reviewed the plantation
scenes and days.

The major inquired what the old man was doing
so far from iiis home.

"Uncle Mose am a delicate," he explained, "to de
grand Baptis' convention in dis city. I never preached
none, but bcin' a rcsidin' elder in de church, and able
fur to pay my own expenses, dey sent me along."

"And how did you know we were in Washington ?"
inquired Miss Lydia.

"Dey's a cullud man works in de hotel whar I stops,
what comes from Mobile. He told me he seen Mars'
Pendleton comin' outen dish here house one mawnin\

"What I come fur," continued Uncle Mose, reach-
ing into his pocket — "besides de sight of home folks —
was to pay Mars' Pendleton what I owes him."

"Owe me?" said the major, in surprise.

"Yassir — three hundred dollars." He handed the
major a roll of bills. "When I lef' old mars' says:
'Take dem mule colts, Mose, and, if it be so you gits
able, pay fur 'em'. Yassir — dem was his words.
De war had done lef old mars' po' hisself. Old mars'
bein' 'long ago dead, de debt descends to Mars' Pen-
dleton. Three hundred dollars. Uncle Mose is
plenty able to pay now. When dat railroad buy my
Ian' I laid off to pay fur dem mules. Count de
money, Mars' Pendleton. Dat's what I sold dem
mules fur. Yassir."

152 Sixes and Sevens

Tears were in Major Talbot's eyes. He took
Uncle Mose's hand and laid his other upon his shoul-
der.

"Dear, faithful, old servitor," he said in an unsteady
voice, "I don't mind saying to you that 'Mars* Pen-
dleton' spent his last dollar in the world a week ago.
We will accept this money, Uncle Mose, since, in a way,
it is a sort of payment, as well as a token of the loyalty
and devotion of the old regime. Lydia, my dear, take
the money. You are better fitted than I to manage
its expenditure."

"Take it, honey," said Uncle Mose. "Hit belongs
to you. Hit's Talbot money."

After Uncle Mose had gone, Miss Lydia had a good
cry — for joy; and the major turned his face to a
corner, and smoked his clay pipe volcanically.

The succeeding days saw the Talbots restored to
peace and ease. Miss Lydia's face lost its worried
look. The major appeared in a new frock coat, in
which he looked like a wax figure personifying the
memory of his golden age. Another publisher who
read the manuscript of the "Anecdotes and Reminis-
cences" thought that, with a little retouching and
toning down of the high lights, he could make a really
bright and salable volume of it. Altogether, the situ-
ation was comfortable, and not without the touch
of hope that is often sweeter than arrived blessings.

One day, about a week after their piece of good luck,

The Duplicity of Hargraves 153

a maid brought a letter for Miss Lydia to her room.
The postmark showed that it was from New York,
Not knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild
flutter of wonder, sat down by her table and opened
the letter with her scissors. This was what she read:

Dear Miss Talbot :

I thought you might be glad to learn of my good
fortune. I have received and accepted an offer of
two hundred dollars per week by a New York stock
company to play Colonel Calhoun in "A Magnolia
Flower."

There is something else I wanted you to know. I
guess you'd better not tell Major Talbot. I was
anxious to make him some amends for the great help
he was to me in studying the part, and for the bad
humour he was in about it. He refused to let me, so
I did it anyhow. I could easily spare the three
hundred.

Sincerely yours,

H. Hopkins Hargraves.
P. S. How did I play Uncle Mose?

Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss
Lydia's door open and stopped.

"Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?" he
asked.

Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her
dress.

"The Mobile Chronicle came," she said promptly-
"It's on the table in your study."

XIV

LET ME FEEL YOUR PULSE

OO I went to a doctor.

"How long lias it been since you took any alcohol
into your system?" he asked.

Turning my head sidewise, I answered, "Oh, quite
awhile."

He was a young doctor, somewhere between twenty
and forty. He wore heliotrope socks, but he looked
like Napoleon. I liked him immensely.

"Now," said he, "I am going to show you the effect
of alcohol upon your circulation." I think it was
"circulation" he said; though it may have been "ad-
vertising."

He bared my left arm to the elbow, brought out a
bottle of whiskey, and gave me a drink. lie bogan to
look more like Napoleon. I began to like him better.

Then he put a tight compress on my upper arm,

stopped my pulse with his finger, and squeezed a

rubber bulb connected with an apparatus on a stand

that looked like a thermometer. The mercury

jumped up and down without seeming to stop any*

Let Me Feel Your Pulse IBS

where; but the doctor said it registered two hundred
and thirty-seven or one hundred and sixty -five or
some such number,

"Now," said he, "you see what alcohol does to
the blood-pressure."

"It's marvellous," said I, "but do you think it a
sufficient test? Have one on me, and let's try the
other arm." But, no!

Then lie grasped my hand. I thought I was doomed
and he was saying good-bye. But all he wanted to
do was to jab a needle into the end of a finger and com-
pare the red drop with a lot of fifty-cent poker chip*
that he had fastened to a card.

"It's the kTmoglobin test," he explained. "The
colour of your blood is wrong."

"Well," said I, "I know it should be blue; but
this is a country of mix-ups. Some of my ancestors
were cavaliers; but they got thick with some people
on Nantucket Island, so "

"I mean," said the doctor, "that the shade of red
is too light."

"Oh," said I, "it's a case of matching instead of
matches."

The doctor then pounded me severely in the regie*
of the chest. When he did that I don't know whether
he reminded me most of Napoleon or Battling or Lord
Nelson. Then he looked grave and mentioned a
string of grievances that the flesh is heir to — mostlj

156 Sires and Sevens

ending in "it is." I immediately paid him fifteen dol-
lars on account.

"Is or are it or some or any of them necessarily
fatal?" I asked. I thought my connection with the
matter justified my manifesting a certain amount of
interest.

"All of them," he answered cheerfully. "But their
progress may be arrested. With care and proper
continuous treatment you may live to be eighty-five
or ninety."

I began to think of the doctor's bill. "Eighty-five
would be sufficient, I am sure," was my comment*
I paid him ten dollars more on account.

"The first thing to do," he said, with renewed
animation, "is to find a sanitarium where you will
get a complete rest for a while, and allow your nerves
to get into a better condition. I myself will go with
you and select a suitable one."

So he took me to a mad-house in the Cat skills. It
was on a bare mountain frequented only by infrequent
frequenters. You could see nothing but stones and
boulders, some patches of snow, and scattered pine
trees. The young physician in charge was most
agreeable, lie gave me a stimulant without applying
a compress to the arm. It was luncheon time, and
we were invited to partake. There were about
twenty inmates at little tables in the dining room.
The young physician in charge came to our table

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 157

and said: "It is a custom with our guests not to
regard themselves as patients, but merely as tired
ladies and gentlemen taking a rest. Whatever slight
maladies they may have arc never alluded to in con-
versation."

My doctor called loudly to a waitress to bring some
phosphoglycerate of lime hash, dog-bread, bromo-
seltzer pancakes, and nux vomica tea for my repast*
Then a sound arose like a sudden wind storm among
pine trees. It was produced by every guest in the
room whispering loudly, "Neurasthenia !" — except
one man with a nose, whom I distinctly heard say,
"Chronic alcohol ism." I hope to meet him again.
The physician in charge turned and walked away.

An hour or so after luncheon he conducted us to
the workshop — say fifty yards from the house.
Thither the guests had been conducted by the physi-
cian in charge's understudy and sponge-holder — a
man with feet and a blue sweater. He was so tall
that I was not sure he had a face; but the Armour
Packing Company would have been delighted with his
hands.

"Here," said the physician in charge, "our guests
find relaxation from past mental worries by devoting
themselves to physical labour — recreation, in real-
ity." (

There were turning-lathes, carpenters' outfits, clay-
modelling tools, spinning-wheels, weaving-frames,

158 Sixes and Sevens

treadmills, bass drums, enlarged-crayon-portrait ap-
paratuses, blacksmith forges, and everything, seem-
ingly, that could interest the paying lunatic guests
of a first-rate sanitarium.

"The lady making mud pies in the corner," whis-
pered the physician in charge, "is no other than —
Lula Lulington, the authoress of the novel entitled
'Why Love Loves.' What she is doing now is simply
to rest her mind after performing that piece of
work."

I had seen the book. "Why doesn't she do it b*
writing another one instead?" I asked.

As you see, I wasn't as far gone as they thought
I was.

"The gentleman pouring water through the funnel,"
continued the physician in charge, "is a Wall Street
broker broken down from overwork."

I buttoned my coat.

Others he pointed out were architects playing with
Noah's arks, ministers reading Darwin's * Theory of
Evolution," lawyers sawing wood, tired- out society
ladies talking Ibsen to the blue-sweatered sponge-
holder, a neurotic millionaire lying asleep on the
floor, and a prominent artist drawing a little red
wagon around the room.

"You look pretty strong," said the physician in
charge to me. "I think the best mental relaxation

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 159

for you would be throwing small boulders over the
mountainside and then bringing them up again."

I was a hundred yards away before my doctor
overtook me.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"The matter is," said I, "that there are no aero-
planes handy. So I am going to merrily and hastily
jog the foot-pathway to yon station and catch the
first unlimited-soft-coal express back to town."

"Well," said the doctor, "perhaps you are right.
This seems hardly the suitable place for you.
But what you need is rest — absolute rest and
exercise."

That night I went to a hotel in the city, and said
to the clerk: "What I need is absolute rest and
exercise. Can you give me a room with one of those
tall folding beds in it, and a relay of bellboys to
work it up and down while I rest ?"

The clerk rubbed a speck off one of his finger nails
and glanced sidewise at a tall man in a white hat
sitting in the lobby. That man came over and asked
me politely if I had seen the shrubbery at the west
entrance. I had not, so he showed it to me and then
looked me over.

"I thought you had 'em," he said, not unkindly,
**but I guess you're all right. You'd better go see a
doctor, old man."

1G0 Sixes and Sevens

A week afterward my doctor tested my blood
pressure again without the preliminary stimulant.
He looked to me a little less like Napoleon. And his
socks were of a shade of tan that did not appeal
to me.

"What you need," he decided, "is sea air and
companionship. "

"Would a mermaid — " I began; but he slipped
on his professional manner.

"I myself," he said, "will take you to the Hotel
Bonair off the coast of Long Island and see that you
get in good shape. It is a quiet, comfortable resort
where you will soon recuperate."

The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-
room fashionable hostelry on an island off the main
shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was
shoved into a side dining-room and given only a terra-
pin and champagne table d'hote. The bay was a great
stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. The Cor-
sair anchored there the dav we arrived. I saw Mr.
Morgan standing on deck eating a cheese sandwich and
gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it was a very in-
expensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their
prices. When you went away you simply left your
baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the mainland in
the night.

When I had been there one day I got a pad of
monogrammed telegraph blanks at the clerk's desk

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 161

and began to wire to all my friends for get-away
money. My doctor and I played one game of croquet
on the golf links and went to sleep on the lawn.

When we got back to town a thought seemed to
occur to him suddenly. "By the way," he asked,
"how do you feel?"

"Relieved of very much," I replied.

Now a consulting physician is different. He
isn't exactly sure whether he is to be paid or not,
and this uncertainty insures you either the most
careful or the most careless attention. My doctor
took me to see a consulting physician. He made a
poor guess and gave me careful attention. I liked
him immensely. He put me through some coordina-
tion exercises.

"Have you a pain in the back of your head?" he
asked. I told him I had not.

"Shut your eyes," he ordered, "put your feet close
together, and jump backward as far as you can."

I always was a good backward jumper with my
eyes shut, so I obeyed. My head struck the edge of
the bathroom door, which had been left open and was
only three feet away. The doctor was very sorry*
He had overlooked the fact that the door was open.
He closed it.

"Now touch your nose with your right forefinger 9 "
he said.

"Where is it?" I asked.

162 Sires and Sevens

"On your face," said he.

"I mean my right forefinger," I explained.

"Oh, excuse me," said he. He reopened the bath*
room door, and I took my finger out of the crack of it.
After I had performed the marvellous digi to-nasal
feat I said :

"I do not wish to deceive you as to symptoms,
Doctor; I really have something like a pain in the
back of my head." He ignored the symptom and ex-
amined my heart carefully with a latest-popular-air-
penny-in-the-slot ear-trumpet. I felt like a ballad.
"Now," he said, "gallop like a horse for about five
minutes around the room."

I gave the best imitation I could of a disqualified
Percheron being led out of Madison Square Garden.
Then, without dropping in a penny, he listened to
my chest again.

"No glanders in our family, Doc," I said.

The consulting physician held up his forefinger
within three inches of my nose. "Look at my finger,"
he commanded.

"Did you ever try Pears' " I began; but he

went on with his test rapidly.

"Now look across the bay. At my finger. Across
the bay. At my finger. At my finger. Across the
bay. Across the bay. At my finger. Across the
bay." This for about three minutes.

He explained that this was a test of the action of

Let Me Feel Your PuUe { 163

the brain. It seemed easy to me. I never once
mistook his finger for the bay. I'll bet that if he had
used the phrases : "Gaze, as it were, unpreoccupied,
outward — or rather laterally — in the direction of
the horizon, underlaid, so to speak, with the adjacent
fluid inlet," and "Now, returning — or rather, in a
manner, withdrawing your attention, bestow it upon
my upraised digit" — I'll bet, I say, that Henry i
James himself could have passed the examination.

After asking me if I had ever had a grand uncle
with curvature of the spine or a cousin with swelled
ankles, the two doctors retired to the bathroom and
sat on the edge of the bath tub for their consultation*
I ate an apple, and gazed first at my finger and then
across the bay.

The doctors came out looking grave. More: they
looked tombstones and Tennessee-papers-please-copy.
They wrote out a diet list to which I was to be re-
stricted. It had everything that I had ever heard
of to eat on it, except snails. And I never eat a snail.
unless it overtakes me and bites me first.

"You must follow this diet strictly," said the
doctors.

"I'd follow it a mile if I could get one-tenth of what's
on it," I answered.

"Of next importance," they went on, "is outdoor
air and exercise. And here is a prescription that
will be of great benefit to you."

164 Sixes and Sevens

Then all of us took something. They tool their
hats, and 1 took my departure.

I went to a druggist and showed him the prescrip-
tion.

"It will be $2.87 for an ounce bottle, ,, he said.

"Will you give me a piece of your wrapping cord?"
said I.

I made a hole in the prescription, ran the cord
through it, tied it around my neck, and tucked it
inside. All of us have a little superstition, and mine
runs to a confidence in amulets.

Of course there was nothing the matter with me,
but I was very ill. I couldn't work, sleep, eat, or
bowl. The only way I could get any sympathy was
to go without shaving for four days. Even then
somebody would say : "Old man, you look as hardy
as a pine knot. Been up for a jaunt in the Maine
woods, eh ?"

Then, suddenly, I remembered that I must have
outdoor air and exercise. So I went down South to
John's. John is an approximate relative by verdict
of a preacher standing with a little book in his hands
in a bower of chrysanthemums while a hundred
thousand people looked on. John has a country
house seven miles from Pineville. It is at an altitude
and on the Blue Ridge Mountains in a state too
dignified to be dragged into this controversy. John

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 165

is mica, which is more valuable and clearer than
gold.

He met me at Pineville, and we took the trolley car
to his home. It is a big, neighbourless cottage on a
hill surrounded by a hundred mountains. We got
off at his little private station, where John's family
and Amaryllis met and greeted us. Amaryllis looked
at me a trifle anxiously.

A rabbit came bounding across the hill between
us and the house. I threw down my suit-case and
pursued it hotfoot. After I had run t\yenty yards
and seen it disappear, I sat down on the grass and
wept disconsolately.

"I can't catch a rabbit any more," I sobbed. "I'm
of no further use in the world. I ma v as well be dead."

"Oh, what is it — what is it, Brother John?" I
heard Amaryllis say.

"Nerves a little unstrung," said John, in his calm
way. "Don't worry. Get up, you rabbit-chaser,
and come on to the house before the biscuits get cold."
It was about twilight, and the mountains came up
nobly to Miss Murfree's descriptions of them.

Soon after dinner I announced that I believed I
could sleep for a year or two, including legal holidays.
So I was shown to a room as big and cool as a flower
garden, where there was a bed as broad as a lawn.
Soon afterward the remainder of the household re-
tired, and then there fell upon the land a silence.

166 Sixes and Seven*

I had not heard a silence before in years* It was
absolute. I raised myself on mv elbow and listened
to it. Sleep ! I thought that if I only could hear a
star twinkle or a blade of grass sharpen itself I could
compose myself to rest. I thought once that I heard
a sound like the sail of a catboat flapping as it veered
about in a breeze, but I decided that it was probably
only a tack in the carpet. Still I listened.

Suddenly some belated little bird alighted upon the
window-sill, and, in what he no doubt considered
sleepy tones, enunciated the noise generally translated
as "cheep !"

I leaped into the air.

"Hey! what's the matter down there ?" called
John from his room above mine.

"Oh, nothing," I answered, "except that I acci-
dentally bumped 1113' head against the ceiling."

The next morning I went out on the porch and
looked at the mountains. There were fortv-seven
of them in sight. I shuddered, went into the big
hall sitting room of the house, selected "Pancoast'a
Family Practice of Medicine" from a bookcase, and
began to read. John came in, took the book away
from me, and led me outside. He has a farm of three
hundred acres furnished with the usual complement
of barns, mules, peasantry, and harrows with three
front teeth broken off. I had seen such things in my
childhood, and my heart began to sink.

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 167

Then John spoke of alfalfa, and I brightened at
once, "Oh, yes," said I, "wasn't she in the chorus
of — let's see "

"Green, you know," said John, "and tender, and you
plow it under after the first season."

"I know," said I, "and the grass grows over
her."

"Right," said John. "You know something about
farming, after all."

"I know something of some farmers," said I, "and
a sure scythe will mow them down some day."

On the way back to the house a beautiful and inex-
plicable creature walked across our path. I stopped
irresistibly fascinated, gazing at it. John waited
patiently, smoking his cigarette. He is a modern
farmer. After ten minutes he said : "Ar<? you going
to stand there looking at that chicken all day?
Breakfast is nearly ready."

"A chicken?" said I.

"A White Orpington hen, if you want to particu-
larize."

"A White Orpington hen?" I repeated, with intense
interest. The fowl walked slowly away with graceful
dignity, and I followed like a child after the Pied
Piper. Five minutes more were allowed me by John,
and then he took me by the sleeve and conducted me
to breakfast.

After I had been there a week I began to grow

168 Sires and Sevens

alarmed. I was sleeping and eating well and actually
beginning to enjoy life. For a man in my desperate
condition that would never do. So I sneaked down
to the trolley-car station, took the car for Pineville,
and went to see one of the best physicians in town.
By this time I knew exactly what to do when I needed
medical treatment. I hung my hat on the back of a
chair, and said rapidly :

"Doctor, I have cirrhosis of the heart, indurated
arteries, neurasthenia, neuritis, acute indigestion, and
convalescence. I am going to live on a strict diet.
I shall also take a tepid bath at night and a cold one
in the morning. I shall endeavour to be cheerful,
and fix my mind on pleasant subjects. In the way
of drugs I intend to take a phosphorous pill three
times a day, preferably after meals, and a tonic com-
posed of the tinctures of gentian, cinchona, calisaya,
and cardamon compound. Into each teaspoonful
of this I shall mix tincture of nux vomica, beginning
with one drop and increasing it a drop each day until
the maximum dose is reached. I shall drop this with
a medicine-dropper, which can be procured at a trifling
cost at any pharmacy. Good morning."

I took my hat and walked out. After I had closed
the door I remembered something that I had forgotten
to say. I opened it again. The doctor had not
moved from where he had been sitting, but he gave a
slightly nervous start when he saw me again.

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 169

"I forgot to mention," said I, "that I shall also
take absolute rest and exercise."

After this consultation I felt much better. The
reestablishing in my mind of the fact that I was hope-
lessly ill gave me so much satisfaction that I almost
became gloomy again. There is nothing more alarm-
ing to a neurasthenic than to feel himself growing well
and cheerful.

John looked after me carefully. After I had evinced
so much interest in his White Orpington chicken he
tried his best to divert my mind, and was particular
to lock his hen house of nights. Gradually the tonic
mountain air, the wholesome food, and the daily
"walks among the hills so alleviated my malady that
I became utterly wretched and despondent. I heard
of a country doctor who lived in the mountains near-
by. I went to see him and told him the whole story.
He was a gray-bearded man with clear, blue, wrinkled
eyes, in a home-made suit of gray jeans.

In order to save time I diagnosed my case, touched
my nose with my right forefinger, struck myself
below the knee to make my foot kick, sounded my
chest, stuck out my tongue, and asked him the price
of cemetery lots in Pineville.

He lit his pipe and looked at me for about three
minutes. "Brother," he said, after a while, "you
are in a mighty bad way. There's a chance for you
to pull through, but it's a mighty slim one."

170 Sires and Sevens

"What can it be?" I asked eagerly. "I have taken
arsenic and gold, phosphorus, exercise, nux vomica,
hydrotherapcutic baths, rest, excitement, codcin, and
aromatic spirits of ammonia. Is there anything left
in the pharmacopoeia?"

"Somewhere in these mountains," said the doctor,
"there's a plant growing — a flowering plant that'll
cure you, and it's about the only thing that will. It's
of a kind that's as old as the world ; but of late it's
powerful scarce and hard to find. You and I will
have to hunt it up. I'm not engaged in active prac-
tice now: I'm getting along in years; but I'll take
your case. You'll have to come every day in the
afternoon and help me hunt for this plant till we find
it. The city doctors may know a lot about new scien-
tific things, but they don't know much about the
cures that nature carries around in her saddle
bags."

So every day the old doctor and I hunted the cure-
all plant among the mountains and valleys of the
Blue Ridge. Together we toiled up steep heights
so slippery with fallen autumn leaves that we had
to catch every sapling and branch within our reach
to save us from falling. We waded through gorges
and chasms, breast-deep with laurel and ferns; we
followed the banks of mountain streams for miles,
we wound our way like Indians through brakes of
pine — road side, hill side, river side, mountain

Let Me Feel Tour Puhe 171

side we explored in our search for the miraculous
plant.

As the old doctor said, it must have grown scarce
and hard to find. But we followed our quest. Day
by day we plumbed the valleys, scaled the heights,
and tramped the plateaus in search of the miraculous
plant. Mountain-bred, he never seemed to tire. I
often reached home too fatigued to do anything except
fall into bed and sleep until morning. This we kept
up for a month.

One evening after I had returned from a six-mile
tramp with the old doctor, Amaryllis and I took a
little walk under the trees near the road. We looked
at the mountains drawing their royal-purple robes
around them for their night's repose.

"I'm glad you're well again," she said. "When
you first came you frightened me. I thought you
were really ill."

"Well again !" I almost shrieked. "Do you know
that I have only one chance in a thousand to live?"

Amaryllis looked at me in surprise. "Why,"
said she, "you are as strong as one of the plough-
mules, you sleep ten or twelve hours every night,
and you are eating us out of house and home. What
more do you want ?"

"I tell you," said I, "that unless we find the magic
•—that is, the plant we are looking for — in time,
nothing can save me. The doctor tells me so."

172 Sixes and Severn

"What doctor ?"

"Doctor Tatuni — the old doctor who lives half-
way up Black Oak Mountain. Do you know
him?"

"I have known him since I was able to talk. And
is that where you go every day — is it he who takes
you on these long walks and climbs that have brought
back your health and strength? God bless the old
doctor."

Just then the old doctor himself drove slowly down
the road in his rickety old buggy. I waved my hand
at him and shouted that I would be on hand the next
day at the usual time. He stopped his horse and
called to Armaryllis to come out to him. They talked
for five minutes while I waited. Then the old doctor
drove on.

When we got to the house Amaryllis lugged out an
encyclopaedia and sought a word in it. "The doctor
said," she told me, "that you needn't call any more
as a patient, but he'd be glad to see you any time as a
friend. And then he told me to look up my name
in the encyclopaedia and tell you what il means. It
seems to be the name of a genus of flowering plants,
and also the name of a country girl in Theocritus and
Virgil. What do you suppose the doctor meant by
that?"

"I know what he meant," said I. "I know
now."

Let Me Feel Your Pulse 178

A word to a brother who may have come under the
spell of the unquiet Lady Neurasthenia.

The formula was true. Even though gropingly at
times, the physicians of the walled cities had put their
fingers upon the specific medicament.

And so for the exercise one is referred to good Doc-
tor Tatum on Black Oak Mountain — take the road to
your right at the Methodist meeting house in the
pine-grove.

Absolute rest and exercise!

What rest more remedial than to sit with Amaryllis
in the shade, and, with a sixth sense, read the wordless
Theocritan idyl of the gold-bannered blue mountains
marching orderly into the dormitories of the night?

OCTOBER AND JUNE

1 HE Captain gazed gloomily at his sword that hung
upon the wall. In the closet near by was stored his
faded uniform, stained and worn by weather and
service. What a long, long time it seemed since those
old days of war's alarms !

And now, veteran that he was of his country's
strenuous times, he had been reduced to abject sur-
render by a woman's soft eyes and smiling lips. As
he sat in his quiet room he held in his hand the letter
he had just received from her — the letter that had
caused him to wear that look of gloom. He re-read
the fatal paragraph that had destroyed his hope.

In declining the honour you have done me in asking
me to be your wife, I feel that I ought to speak
frankly. The reason I have for so doing is the great
difference between our ages. I like you very, very
much, but I am sure that our marriage would not
be a happy one. I am sorry to have to refer to this,
but I believe that you will appreciate my honesty in
giving you the true reason.

The Captain sighed, and leaned his head upon his

174

October and June 175

hand. Yes, there were many years between their
ages. But he was strong and rugged, he had position
and wealth.* Would not his love, his tender care,
and the advantages he could bestow upon her make
her forget the question of age? Besides, he was al-
most sure that she cared for him.

The Captain was a man of prompt action. In the
field he had been distinguished for his decisiveness
and energy. He would see her and plead his cause
again in person. Age! — what was it to come be-
tween him and the one he loved?

In two hours he stood ready, in light marching
order, for his greatest battle. He took the train
for the old Southern town in Tennessee where she
lived.

Theodora Deming was on the steps of the handsome,
porticoed old mansion, enjoying the summer twilight,
when the Captain entered the gate and came up the
gravelled walk. She met him with a smile that was
free from embarrassment. As the Captain stood on
the step below her, the difference in their ages did not
appear so great. He was tall and straight and clear-
eyed and browned. She was in the bloom of lovely
womanhood.

"I wasn't expecting you," said Theodora; "but
now thpt you've come you may sit on the step. Didn't
you get my letter?"

"I did," said the Captain; "and that's why I

176 Sixes and Sevens

came. I say, now, Theo, reconsider your answer,
won't you?"

Theodora smiled softly upon him. He carried his
years well. She was really fond of his strength, his
wholesome looks, his manliness — perhaps, if

"No, no," she said, shaking her head, positively;
"it's out of the question. I like you a whole lot, but
marrying won't do. My age and yours are — but
don't make me say it again — I told you in my letter."

The Captain flushed a little through the bronze
, on his face. He was silent for a while, gazing sadly
into the twilight. Beyond a line of woods that he
could see was a field where the boys in blue had once
bivouacked on their march toward the sea. How
long ago it seemed now! Truly, Fate and Father
Time had tricked him sorely. Just a few years in-
terposed between himself and happiness !

Theodora's hand crept down and rested in the clasp
of his firm, brown one. She felt, at least, that senti-
ment that is akin to love.

"Don't take it so hard, please," she said, gently.
"It's all for the best. I've reasoned it out very wisely
all by myself. Some day you'll be glad I didn't marry
you. It would be very nice and lovely for a while —
but, just think! In only a few short years what
different tastes we would have. One of us would
want to sit by the fireside and read, and maybe nurse
neuralgia or rheumatism of evenings, while the other

October and June 177

would be crazy for balls and theatres and late suppers.
No, my dear friend. While it isn't exactly January
and May, it's a clear case of October and pretty early
in June."

"I'd always do what you wanted me to do, Theo.
If you wanted to "

"No, you wouldn't. You think now that you
would, but you wouldn't. Please don't ask me any
more."

The Captain had lost his battle. But he was a
gallant warrior, and when he rose to make his final
adieu his mouth was grimly set and his shoulders were
squared.

He took the train for the North that night. On the
next evening he was back in his room, where his sword
was hanging against the wall. He was dressing for
dinner, tying his white tie into a very careful bow.
And at the same time he was indulging in a pensive
soliloquy.

" Ton my honour, I believe Theo was right, after
all. Nobody can deny that she's a peach, but she
must be twenty-eight, at the very kindest calculation."

For you see, the Captain was only nineteen, and his
sword had never been drawn except on the parade
ground at Chattanooga, which was as near as he ever
got to the Spanish- American War.

XVI

THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOT-WHEEE

LAKELANDS is not to be found in the catalogues of
fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur
of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little
tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is
a contented village of two dozen houses situated on a
forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder
whether the railroad lost itself in the pine woods
and ran into Lakelands from fright and loneliness,
or whether Lakelands got lost and huddled itself
along the railroad to wait for the cars to carry it
home.

You wonder again why it was named Lakelands.
There are no lakes, and the lands about are too poor
to be worth mentioning.

Half a mile from the village stands the Eagle House,
a big, roomy old mansion run by Josiah Rankin for
the accommodation of visitors who desire the mountain
air at inexpensive rates. The Eagle House is delight-
fully mismanaged. It is full of ancient instead of
modern improvements, and it is altogether as comfort-
ably neglected and pleasingly disarranged as your own

178

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 17ft

home. But you are furnished with clean rooms and
good and abundant fare : yourself and the piny woods
must do the rest. Nature has provided a mineral
spring, grape-vine swings, and croquet — even the
wickets are wooden. You have Art to thank only for
the fiddle-and-guitar music twice a week at the hop
in the rustic pavilion.

The patrons of the Eagle House are those who
seek recreation as a necessity, as well as a pleasure.
They are busy people, who may be likened to clocks
that need a fortnight's winding to insure a year's
running of their wheels. You will find students there
from the lower towns, now and then an artist, or a
geologist absorbed in construing the ancient strata
of the hills. A few quiet families spend the summers
there; and often one or two tired members of that
patient sisterhood known to Lakelands as "school-
marms."

A quarter of a mile from the Eagle House was what
would have been described to its guests as "an object
of interest" in the catalogue, had the Eagle House
issued a catalogue. This was an old, old mill that was
no longer a mill. In the words of Josiah Rankin,
it was "the only church in the United States, sah,
with an overshot-wheel ; and the only mill in the world,
sah, with pews and a pipe organ." The guests of the
Eagle House attended the old mill church each Sab-
bath, and heard the preacher liken the purified Chris-

180 Sires and Sevens

tian to bolted flour ground to usefulness between the
millstones of experience and suffering.

Every year about the beginning of autumn there
came to the Eagle House one Abram Strong, who
remained for a time an honoured and beloved guest*
In Lakelands he was called "Father Abram," because
his hair was so white, his face so strong and kind and
florid, his laugh so merry, and his black clothes and
broad hat so priestly in appearance. Even new
guests after three or four days' acquaintance gave him
this familiar title.

Father Abram came a long way to Lakelands. He
lived in a big, roaring town in the Northwest where
he owned mills, not little mills with pews and an
organ in them, but great, ugly, mountain-like mills
that the freight trains crawled around all day like
ants around an ant-heap. And now you must be
told about Father Abram and the mill that was a
church, for their stories run together.

In the days when the church was a mill, Mr.
Strong was the miller. There was no jollier, dustier,
busier, happier miller in all the land than he. He
lived in a little cottage across the road from the mill.
His hand was heavy, but his toll was light, and the
mountaineers brought their grain to him across many
weary miles of rocky roads.

The delight of the miller's life was his little daughter,
Aglaia. That was a brave name, truly, for a flaxen-

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 181

haired toddler; but the mountaineers love sonorous
and stately names. The mother had encountered
it somewhere in a book, and the deed was done. In
her babyhood Aglaia herself repudiated the name,
as far as common use went, and persisted in calling
herself "Dums." The miller and his wife often tried
to coax from Aglaia the source of this mysterious
name, but without results. At last thev arrived at
a theory. In the little garden behind the cottage was
a bed of rhododendrons in which the child took a
peculiar delight and interest. It may have been that
she perceived in "Dums" a kinship to the formidable
name of her favourite flowers.

When Aglaia was four years old she and her father
used to go through a little performance in the mill
every afternoon, that never failed to come off, the
weather permitting. When supper was ready her
mother would brush her hair and put on a clean apron
and send her across to the mill to bring her father
home. When the miller saw her coming in the mill
door he would come forward, all white with the flour
dust, and wave his hand and sing an old miller's
song that was familiar in those parts and ran some-
thing like this :

The wheel goes wnind,
The grist is ground,

The dusty miller's merry.
He sinjrs all day,
His work is play,

While thinking of his dearie."

182 Sixes and Sevens

Then Aglaia would run to him laughing, and call:
"Da-da, come take Dums home;" and the miller
,.ould swing her to his shoulder and march over to
supper, singing the miller's song. Every evening
this would take place.

One day, only a week after her fourth birthday,
Aglaia disappeared. When last seen she was plucking
wild flowers bv the side of the road in front of the cot-
tage. A little while later her mother went out to see
that she did not stray too far away, and she was al-
ready gone.

Of course every effort was made to find her. The
neighbours gathered and searched the woods and the
mountains for miles around. They dragged every
foot of the mill race and the creek for a Ion'' distance
below the dam. Never a trace of her did they find.
A night or two before there had been a family of wan-
derers camped in a grove near by. It was conjectured
that they might have stolen the child; but when their
wagon was overtaken and searched she could not be
found.

The miller remained at the mill for nearly two
years ; and then his hope of finding her died out. He
and his wife moved to the Northwest. In a few
years he was the owner of a modern mill in one of the
important milling cities in that region. Mrs. Strong
never recovered from the shock caused by the loss of

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 188

Aglaia, and two years after they moved away the
miller was left to bear his sorrow alone.

When Abram Strong became prosperous he paid a
visit to Lakelands and the old mill. The scene was a
sad one for him, but he was a strong man, and always
appeared cheery and kindly. It was then that he
was inspired to convert the old mill into a church.
Lakelands was too poor to build one; and the still
poorer mountaineers could not assist. There was no
place of worship nearer than twenty miles.

The miller altered the appearance of the mill as
little as possible. The big overshot-wheel was left
in its place. The young people who came to the church
used to cut their initials in its soft and slowly decaying
wood. The dam was partly destroyed, and the clear
mountain stream rippled unchecked down its rocky
bed. Inside the mill the changes were greater. The
shafts and millstones and belts and pulleys were, of
course, all removed. There were two rows of benches
with aisles between, and a little raised platform and
pulpit at one end. On three sides overhead was a
gallery containing seats, and reached by a stairway
inside. There was also an organ — a real pipe organ
— in the gallery, that was the pride of the congrega-
tion of the Old Mill Church. Miss Phoebe Summers
was the organist. The Lakelands boys proudly took
turns at pumping it for her at each Sunday's service.

184 Sixes and Sevens

The Rev. Mr. Banbridge was the preacher, and rode
down from Squirrel Gap on his old white horse without
ever missing a service. And Abram Strong paid for
everything. lie paid the preacher five hundred dol-
lars a year ; and Miss Phoebe two hundred dollars.

Thus, in memory of Aglaia, the old mill was con-
verted into a blessing for the community in which
she had once lived. It seemed that the brief life of
the child had brought about more good than the three
score years and ten of many. But Abram Strong set
up yet another monument to her memory.

Out from his mills in the Northwest came the
"Aglaia" flour, made from the hardest and finest
wheat that could be raised. The country soon found
out that the "Aglaia" flour had two prices. One was
the highest market price, and the other was — nothing.

Wherever there happened a calamity that left
people destitute — a fire, a flood, a tornado, a strike,
or a famine, there would go hurrying a generous con-
signment of the "Aglaia" at its "nothing" price. It
was given away cautiously and judiciously* but it
was freely given, and not a penny could the hungry
ones pay for it. There got to be a saying that when-
ever there was a disastrous fire in the poor districts of
a city the fire chief's buggy reached the scene first, next
the "Aglaia" flour wagon, and then the fire engines.

So this was Abram Strong's other monument to
Aglaia. Perhaps to a poet the theme may seem too

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 185

utilitarian for beauty; but to some the fancy will
seem sweet and fine that the pure, white, virgin flour,
flying on its mission of love and eharitj', might be
likened to the spirit of the lost child whose memory
it signalized.

There came a year that brought hard times to the
Cumberlands. Grain crops everywhere were light,
and there were no local crops at all. Mountain floods
had done much damage to property. Even game in the
woods was so scarce that the hunters brought hardly
enough home to keep their folk alive. Especially
about Lakelands was the rigour felt.

As soon as Abram Strong heard of this his messages
flew ; and the little narrow-gauge cars began to unload
"Aglaia" flour there. The miller's orders were to
store the flour in the gallery of the Old Mill Church ;
and that every one who attended the church was to
carry home a sack of it.

Two weeks after that Abram Strong came for his
yearly visit to the Eagle House, and became "Father
Abram" again.

That season the Eagle House had fewer guests
than usual. Among them was Rose Chester. Miss
Chester came to Lakelands from Atlanta, where she
worked in a department store. This was the first
vacation outing of her life. The wife of the store man-
ager had once spent a summer at the Eagle House.
She had taken a fancy to Rose, and had persuaded

186 Sixes and Sevens

her to go there for her three weeks' holiday. The
manager's wife gave her a letter to Mrs. Rankin, wha
gladly received her in her own charge and care.

Miss Chester was not very strong. She was about
twenty, and pale and delicate from an indoor life.
But one week of Lakelands gave her a brightness and
spirit that changed her wonderfully. The time was
early September when the Cumberlands are at their
greatest beauty. The mountain foliage was growing
brilliant with autumnal colours; one breathed aerial
champagne, the nights were deliriously cool, causing
one to snuggle cosily under the warm blankets of
the Eagle House.

Father Abram and Miss Chester became great
friends. The old miller learned her story from Mrs.
Rankin, and his interest went out quickly to the slen-
der, lonely girl who was making her own way in the
world.

The mountain country was new to Miss Chester.
She had lived many years in the warm, flat town of
Atlanta ; and the grandeur and variety of the Cumber-
lands- delighted her. She was determined to enjoy
every moment of her stay. Her little hoard of savings
had been estimated so carefully in connection with her
expenses that she knew almost to a penny what heF
very small surplus would be when she returned to
work.

Miss Chester was fortunate in gaining Father

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 187

Abram for a friend and companion. He knew every
road and peak and slope of the mountains near Lake-
lands. Through him she became acquainted with the
solemn delight of the shadowy, tilted aisles of the
pine forests, the dignity of the bare crags, the crystal,
tonic mornings, the dreamy, golden afternoons full
of mysterious sadness. So her health improved,
and her spirits grew light. She had a laugh as genial
and hearty in its feminine way as the famous laugh
of Father Abram. Both of them were natural opti-
mists; and both knew how to present a serene and
cheerful face to the world.

One day Miss Chester learned from one of the guests
the history of Father Abram's lost child. Quickly
she hurried away and found the miller seated on his
favourite rustic bench near the chalybeate spring.
He was surprised when his little friend slipped her
hand into his, and looked at him with tears in her
eyes.

"Oh, Father Abram," she said, "I'm so sorry! I
didn't know until to-day about your little daughter.
You will find her yet some day — Oh, I hope you
will."

The miller looked down at her with his strong,
ready smile.

"Thank you, Miss Rose," he said, in his usual
cheery tones. "But I do not expect to find Aglaia^
For a few years I hoped that she had been stolen by

188 Sires and Sevens

vagrants, and that she still lived ; but I have lost that
hope. I believe that she was drowned."

"I can understand," said Miss Chester, "how the
doubt must have made it so hard to bear. And yet
you are so cheerful and so ready to make other peo-
ple's burdens light. Good Father Abram!"

"Good Miss Rose!" mimicked the miller, smiling.
"Who thinks of others more than you do?"

A whimsical mood seemed to strike Miss Chester.

"Oh, Father Abram," she cried, "wouldn't it be
grand if I should prove to be your daughter?
Wouldn't it be romantic? And wouldn't you like to
have me for a daughter?"

"Indeed, I would," said the miller, heartily. "If
Aglaia had lived I could wish for nothing better than
for her to have grown up to be just such a little woman
as you are. Maybe you are Aglaia," he continued,
falling in with her playful mood ; "can't you remember
when we lived at the mill?"

Miss Chester fell swiftly into serious meditation.
Her large pyes were fixed vaguely upon something
in the distance. Father Abram was amused at her
quick return to seriousness. She sat thus for a long
time before she spoke.

"No," she said at length, with a long sigh, "I cant
remember anything at all about a mill. I don't
think that I ever saw a flour mill in my life until I

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 189

saw your funny little church. And if I were your lit-
tle girl I would remember it, wouldn't I? I'm so
sorry, Father Abram."

"So am I," said Father Abram, humouring her.
"But if you cannot remember that you are my little
girl, Miss Rose, surely you can recollect being some
one else's. You remember your own parents, of
course."

"Oh, yes; I remember them very well — especially
my father. He wasn't a bit like you, Father Abram.
Oh, I was only making believe. Come, now, you've
rested long enough. You promised to show me the
pool where you can see the trout playing, this after-
noon. I never saw a trout."

Late one afternoon Father Abram set out for the
old mill alone. He often went to sit and think of the
old days when he lived in the cottage across the road.
Time had smoothed away the sharpness of his grief
until he no longer found the memory of those times
painful. But whenever Abram Strong sat in the mel-
ancholy September afternoons on the spot where
"Dums" used to run in every day with her yellow
curls flying, the smile that Lakelands always saw upon
his face was not there.

The miller made his way slowly up the winding,
steep road. The trees crowded so close to the edge of
it that he walked in their shade, with his hat in his
hand. Squirrels ran playfully upon the old rail

110 Sixes and Sevens

fence at his right. Quails were calling to their young
broods in the wheat stubble. The low sun sent a
torrent of pale gold up the ravine that opened to the
west. Early September! — it was within a few days
only of the anniversary of Aglaia's disappear-
ance.

The old overshot-wheel, half covered with mountain
ivy, caught patches of the warm sunlight filtering
through the trees. The cottage across the road was
still standing, but it would doubtless go down before
the next winter's mountain blasts. It was overrun
with morning glory and wild gourd vines, and the
door hung by one hinge.

Father Abram pushed open the mill door, and
entered softly. And then he stood still, wondering.
He heard the sound of some one within, weeping
inconsolably. lie looked, and saw Miss Chester
sitting in a dim pew, with her head bowed upon an
open letter that her hands held.

Father Abram went to her, and laid one of his
strong hands firmly upon hers. She looked up,
breathed his name, and tried to speak further.

"Not yet, Miss Rose," said the miller, kindly,
"Don't try to talk yet. There's nothing as good for
you as a nice, quiet little cry when you are feeling
blue."

It seemed that the old miller, who had known so
much sorrow himself, was a magician in driving it

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 191

away from others. Miss Chester's sobs grew easier.
Presently she took her little plain-bordered handker-
chief and wiped away a drop or two that had fallen
from her eyes upon Father Abram's big hand. Then
she looked up and smiled through her tears. Miss
Chester could always smile before her tears had dried,
just as Father Abram could smile through his own
grief. In that way the two were very much alike.

The miller asked her no questions ; but by and by
Miss Chester began to tell him.

It was the old story that always seems so big and
important to the young, and that brings reminiscent
smiles to their elders. Love was the theme, as may
be supposed. There was a young man in Atlanta,
full of all goodness and the graces, who had discovered
that Miss Chester also possessed these qualities above
all other people in Atlanta or anywhere else from
Greenland to Patagonia. She showed Father Abram
the letter over which she had been weeping. It was a
manly, tender letter, a little superlative and urgent,
after the style of love letters written by young men
full of goodness and the graces. He proposed for
Miss Chester's hand in marriage at once. Life, he
said, since her departure for a three-weeks' visit, was
not to be endured. He begged for an immediate
answer; and if it were favourable he promised to
fly, ignoring the nai row-gauge railroad, at once to
Lakelands.

192 Sixes and Sevens

"And now where does the trouble come in?"
asked the miller when he had read the letter.

"I cannot marry him," said Miss Chester.

"Do you want to marry him?" asked Father Abram.

"Oh, I love him," she answered, "but " Down

Went he* head and she sobbed again.

"Come, Miss Rose," said the miller ; "y«u can give
me your confidence. I do not question you, but I
think you can trust me."

"I do trust you," said the girl. "I will tell you why
I must refuse Ralph. I am nobody ; I haven't even
a name ; the name I call myself is a lie. Ralph is a
noble man. I love him with all my heart, but I can
never be his."

"What talk is this?" said Father Abram. "You
said that you remember your parents. Why do you
sa y you have no name? I do not understand."

"I do remember them," said Miss Chester. "I re-
member them too well. My first recollections are
of our life somewhere in the far South. We moved
many times to different towns and states. I have
picked cotton, and werked in factories, and have often
fjone without enough food and clothes. My mother
was sometimes good to me; my father was always
cruel, and beat me. I think they were both idle
and unsettled.

"One night when we were living in a little town on a
river near Atlanta they had a great quarrel. It was

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel 193

while they were abusing and taunting each other
that I learned — oh, Father Abram, I learned that
I didn't even have the right to be — don't you un-
derstand? I had no right even to a name; I was
nobody.

"I ran away that night. I walked to Atlanta and
found work. I gave myself the name of Rose Chester,
and have earned my own living ever since. Now
you know why I cannot marry Ralph — and, oh, I
can never tell him why."

Better than any sympathy, more helpful than pity,
was Father Abram's depreciation of her woes.

"Why, dear, dear ! is that all?" he said. "Fie, fie !
I thought something was in the way. If this perfect
young man is a man at all he will not care a pinch
of bran for your family tree. Dear Miss Rose, take
my word for it, it is yourself he cares for. Tell him
frankly, just as you have told me, and I'll warrant
that he will laugh at your story, and think all the more
of you for it."

"I shall never tell him," said Miss Chester, sadly.
"And I shall never marry him nor any one else. I
have not the right."

But they saw a long shadow come bobbing up the
sunlit road. And then came a shorter one bobbing
by its side; and presently two strange figures ap-
proached the church. The long shadow was made by
Miss Phoebe Summers, the organist, come to practise.

194 Sixes and Sevens

Tommy Teeguc, aged twelve, was responsible for
the shorter shadow. It was Tommy's day to pump
the organ for Miss Phoebe, and his bare toes proudly
spurned the dust of the road.

Miss Phoebe, in her lilac-spray chintz dress, with her
accurate little curls hanging over each car, courtesied
low to Father Abram, and shook her curls ceremoni-
ously at Miss Chester. Then she and her assistant
climbed the steep stairway to the organ loft.

In the gathering shadows below, Father Abram and
Miss Chester lingered. They were silent ; and it is
likely that they were busy with their memories. Miss
Chester sat, leaning her head on her hand, with her
eyes fixed far away. Father Abram stood in the next
pew, looking thoughtfully out of the door at the
road and the ruined cottage.

Suddenly the scene was transformed for him back
almost a score of years into the past. For, as Tommy
pumped awa} 7 , Miss Phoebe struck a low bass note
on the organ and held it to test the volume of air
that it contained. The church ceased to exist, so
far as Father Abram was concerned. The deep,
booming vibration that shook the little frame building
was no note from an organ, but the humming of the
mill machinery. lie felt sure that the old overshot
wheel was turning; that he was back again, a dusty,
merry miller in the old mountain mill. And now
evening was come, and soon would come Aglaia with

The Church with an Overshot-Whecl 195

flying colours, toddling across the road to take him
home to supper. Father Abram's eyes were fixed
upon the broken door of the cottage.

And then came another wonder. In the gallery
overhead the sacks of flour were stacked in long rows.
Perhaps a mouse had been at one of them; anyway
the jar of the deep organ note shook down between
the cracks of the gallery floor a stream of flour, cover-
ing Father Abram from head to foot with the white
dust. And then the old miller stepped into the aisle,
and waved his arms and began to sing the miller's
song:

The wheel goes round,
The grist is ground,
The dusty miller's merry."

— and then the rest of the miracle happened. Miss
Chester was leaning forward from her pew, as pale
as the flour itself, her wide-open eyes staring at Father
Abram like one in a waking dream. When he began
the song she stretched out her arms to him ; her lips
moved ; she called to him in dreamy tones : "Da-da,
come take Dums home !"

Miss Pho?be released the low key of the organ.
But her work had been well done. The note that she
struck had beaten down the doors of a closed memory;
and Father Abram held his lost Aglaia close in his
arms.

196 Sixes and Sevens

When you visit Lakelands they will tell you more
of this story. They will tell you how the lines of it
were afterward traced, and the history of the miller's
daughter revealed after the gipsy wanderers had
stolen her on that September day, attracted by her
childish beauty. But you should wait until you sit
comfortably on the shaded porch of the Eagle House,
and then you can have the story at your ease. It
seems best that our part of it should close while Miss
Phoebe's deep bass note was yet reverberating softly.

And yet, to my mind, the finest thing of it all hap-
pened while Father Abram and his daughter were
walking back to the Eagle House in the long twilight,
almost too glad to speak.

"Father," she said, somewhat timidly and doubt-
fully, "have you a great deal of money?"

"A great deal ?" said the miller. "Well, that de-
pends. There is plenty unless you want to buy the
moon or something equally expensive."

"Would it cost very, very much," asked Aglaia,
who had always counted her dimes so carefuly, "to
send a telegram to Atlanta?"

"Ah," said Father Abram, with a little sigh, "I
see. You want to ask Ralph to come."

Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile.

"I want to ask him to wait," she said. "I have
just found my father, and I want it to be just we two
for a whDe. I want to tell him he will have to wait."

xvn

NEW YORK BY CAMP FIRE LIGHT

A.WAY out in the Creek Nation we learned things
about New York.

We were on a hunting trip, and were camped one
night on the bank of a little stream. Bud Kingsbury
was our skilled hunter and guide, and it was from his
lips that we had explanations of Manhattan and the
queer folks that inhabit it. Bud had once spent a
month in the metropolis, and a week or two at other
times, and he was pleased to discourse to us of what
he had seen.

Fifty yards away from our camp was pitched the
teepee of a wandering family of Indians that had
come up and settled there for the night. An old,
old Indian woman was trying to build a fire under
an iron pot hung upon three sticks.

Bud went over to her assistance, and soon had her
fire going. When he came back we complimented
him playfully upon his gallantry.

"Oh," said Bud, "don't mention it. It's a way I

have. Whenever I see a lady trying to cook things

in a pot and having trouble I always go to the rescue.

197

198 Sixes and Sevens

I done the same thing once in a high-toned house in
New York City. Heap big society teepee on Fifth
Avenue. That Injun lady kind of recalled it to my
mind. Yes, I endeavours to be polite and help the
ladies out."

The camp demanded the particulars.

"I was manager of the Triangle B Ranch in the
Panhandle," said Bud. "It was owned at that time
by old man Sterling, of New York. He wanted to
sell out, and he wrote for me to come on to New York
and explain the ranch to the syndicate that wanted
to buy. So I sends to Fort Worth and has a forty
dollar suit of clothes made, and hits the trail for the
big village.

"Well, when I got there, old man Sterling and his
outfit certainly laid themselves out to be agreeable.
We had business and pleasure so mixed up that you
couldn't tell whether it was a treat or a trade half
the time. We had trolley rides, and cigars, and
theatre round-ups, and rubber parties."

"Rubber parties?" said a listener, inquiringly.

"Sure," said Bud. "Didn't you never attend 'em?
You walk around and try to look at the tops of the
skyscrapers. Well, we sold the ranch, and old man
Sterling asks me 'round to his house to take grub on
the night before I started back. It wasn't any high-
collared affair — just me and the old man and his
wife and daughter. But they was a fine-haired outfit

Nem York by Camp Fire Light 199

all right, and the lilies of the field wasn't in it. Thej
made my Fort Worth clothes carpenter look like a
dealer in horse blankets and gee strings. And then
the table was all pompous with flowers, and there was
a whole kit of tools laid out beside everybody's plate.
You'd have thought you was fixed out to burglarize
a restaurant before you could get your grub. But
I'd been in New York over a week then, and I was
getting on to stylish ways. I kind of trailed behind
and watched the others use the hardware supplies,
and then I tackled the chuck with the same weapons.
It ain't much trouble to travel with the high-flyers
after you find out their gait. I got along fine. I
was feeling cool and agreeable, and pretty soon I was
talking away fluent as you please, all about the ranch
and the West, and telling 'cm how the Indians eat
grasshopper stew and snakes, and you never saw
people so interested.

"But the real joy of that feast was that Miss Ster-
ling. Just a little trick she was, not bigger than two
bits' worth of chewing plug; but she had a way about
her that seemed to say she was the people, and you
believed it. And yet, she never put on any airs, and
she smiled at me the same as if I was a millionaire
while I was telling about a Creek dog feast and listened
like it was news from home.

"By and by, after we had eat oysters and some
watery soup and truck that never was in my repertory,

200 Sixes and Sevens

a Methodist preacher brings in a kind of camp stove
arrangement, all silver, on long legs, with a lamp
under it.

"Miss Sterling lights up and begins to do some
cooking right on the supper table. I wondered why
old man Sterling didn't hire a cook, with all the money
he had. Pretty soon she dished out some cheesy
tasting truck that she said was rabbit, but I swear
there had never been a Molly cotton tail in a mile of
it.

"The last thing on the programme was lemonade.
It was brought around in little flat glass bowls and set
by your plate. I was pretty thirsty, and I picked up
mine and took a big swig of it. Right there was
where the little lady had made a mistake. She had
put in the lemon all right, but she'd forgot the sugar.
The best housekeepers slip up sometimes. I thought
maybe Miss Sterling was just learning to keep house
and cook — that rabbit would surely make you think
so — and I says to myself, 'Little lady, sugar or no
sugar I'll stand by you,' and I raises up my bowl
again and drinks the last drop of the lemonade. And
then all the balance of 'em picks up their bowls and
does the same. And then I gives Miss Sterling the
laugh proper, just to carry it off like a joke, so she
wouldn't feel bad about the mistake.

"After we all went into the sitting room she sat
down and talked to me quite awhile.

New York by Camp Fire Light 201

" 'It was so kind of you, Mr. Kingsbury,' says she,
'to bring my blunder off so nicely. It was so stupid
of me to forget the sugar.'

"'Never you mind,' says I, 'some lucky man will
throw his rope over a mighty elegant little house-
keeper some day, not far from here.'

"'If you mean me, Mr. Kingsbury,* says she,
laughing out loud, 'I hope he will be as lenient with
my poor housekeeping as you have been.'

" 'Don't mention it,' says I. 'Anything to oblige
the ladies.' "

Bud ceased his reminiscences. And then some one
asked him what he considered the most striking and
prominent trait of New Yorkers.

"The most visible and peculiar trait of New York
folks," answered Bud, "is New York. Most of 'em
has New York on the brain. They have heard of
other places, such as Waco, and Paris, and Hot
Springs, and London ; but they don't believe in 'em.
They think that town is all Merino. Now to show you
how much they care for their village I'll tell you about
one of 'em that strayed out as far as the Triangle
B while I was working there.

"This New Yorker come out there looking for a
job on the ranch. He said he was a good horseback
rider, and there was pieces of tanbark hanging on his
clothes yet from his riding school.

"Well, for a while they put him to keeping books in

202 Sires and Sevens

the ranch store, for he was a devil at figures. But
he got tired of that, and asked for something more
in the line of activity. The boys on the ranch liked
him all right, but he made us tired shouting New
York all the time. Every night he'd tell us about
East River and J. P. Morgan and the Eden Musee
and Hetty Green and Central Park till we used to
throw tin plates and branding irons at him.

"One day this chap gets on a pitching pony, and
the pony kind of sidled up his back and went to eating
grass while the New Yorker was coming down.

"He come down on his head on a chunk of mesquit
wood, and he didn't show any designs toward getting
up again. We laid him out in a tent, and he begun
to look pretty dead. So Gideon Pease saddles up and
burns the wind for old Doc Sleeper's residence in
Dogtown, thirty miles away.

"The doctor comes over and he investigates the
patient.

"'Boys,' says he, 'you might as well go to playing
seven-up for his saddle and clothes, for his head's
fractured and if he lives ten minutes it will be a re-
markable case of longevity.'

"Of course we didn't gamble for the poor rooster's
saddle — that was one of Doc's jokes. But we stood
around feeling solemn, and all of us forgive him for
having talked us to death about New York.

"I never saw anybody about to hand in his checks

New York by Camp Fire Light 208

act more peaceful than this fellow. His eyes were
fixed 'way up in the air, and he was using rambling
words to himself all about sweet music and beautiful
streets and white-robed forms, and he was smiling
like dying was a pleasure.

"'He's about gone now,' said Doc. 'Whenever
they begin to think they see heaven it's all off.'

"Blamed if that New York man didn't sit right up
when he heard the Doc sav that.

"'Say,' says he, kind of disappointed, 'was that
heaven? Confound it all, I thought it was Broadway.
Some of you fellows get my clothes. I'm going to
get up.'

"And I'll be blamed," concluded Bud, "if he
wasn't on the train with a ticket for New York in hit
pocket four days afterward 1"

xvm

THE ADVENTURES OF SHAMROCK JOLNES

I AM so fortunate as to count Shamrock Jolnes, the
great New York detective, among my muster of
friends. Jolnes is what is called the "inside man"
of the city detective force. He is an expert in the
use of the typewriter, and it is his duty, whenever
there is a "murder mystery" to be solved, to sit at a
desk telephone at headquarters and take down the
message of "cranks" who 'phone in their confessions
to having committed the crime.

But on certain "off" days when confessions are
coming in slowly and three or four newspapers have
run to earth as many different guilty persons, Jolnes
will knock about the town with me, exhibiting, to
my great delight and instruction, his marvellous pow-
ers of observation and deduction.

The other day I dropped in at Headquarters and
found the great detective gazing thoughtfully at a
string that was tied tightly around his little finger.

"Good morning, Whatsup," he said, without turn-
ing his head. "I'm glad to notice that you've had

your house fitted up with electric lights at last."

204

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes 205

"Will you please tell me," I said, in surprise, "how
you knew that? I am sure that I never mentioned
the fact to any one, and the wiring was a rush order
not completed until this morning."

"Nothing easier," said Jolnes, genially. "As you
came in I caught the odour of the cigar you are smok-
ing. I know an expensive cigar ; and I know that not
more than throe men in New York can afford to
smoke cigars and pay gas bills too at the present time.
That was an easy one. But I am working just now
on a little problem of my own."

"Why have you that string on your finger?" I
asked,

"That's the problem," said Jolnes. "My wife
tied that on this morning to remind me of something
I was to send up to the house. Sit down, Whatsup,
and excuse me for a few moments."

The distinguished detective went to a wall tele-
phone, and stood with the receiver to his ear for prob-
ably ten minutes.

"Were you listening to a confession?" I asked,
when he had returned to his chair.

"Perhaps," said Jolnes, with a smile, "it might be
called something of the sort. To be frank with you,
Whatsup, I've cut out the dope. I've been increasing
the quantity for so long that morphine doesn't have
much effect on me any more. I've got to have some-
thing more powerful. That telephone I just went

206 Sires and Sevens

to is connected with a room in the Waldorf where
there's an author's reading in progress. Now, to
get at the solution of this string."

After five minutes of silent pondering, Jolnes looked
at me, with a smile, and nodded his head.

"Wonderful man !" I exclaimed ; "already?"

"It is quite simple," he said, holding up his finger.
"You see that knot? That is to prevent my forget*
ting. It is, therefore, a forgct-me-knot. A forget-
me-not is a flower. It was a sack of flour that I was
to send home !"

"Beautiful!" I could not help crying out in ad-
miration.

"Suppose we go out for a ramble," suggested Jolnes.

"There is only one case of importance on hand just
now. Old man McCarty, one hundred and four
years old, died from eating too many bananas. The
evidence points so strongly to the Mafia that the
police have surrounded the Second Avenue Katzen-
jammer Gambrinus Club No. 8, and the capture of
the assassin is only the matter of a few hours. The
detective force has not yet been called on for assist-
ance."

Jolnes and I went out and up the street toward the
corner, where we were to catch a surface car.

Half-way up the block we met Rheingclder, an
acquaintance of ours, who held a City Hall position,

"Good morning, Rheingelder," said Jolnes, halting.

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes 207

"Nice breakfast that was you had this morning."

Always on the lookout for the detective's remark-
able feats of deduction, I saw Jolnes's eyes flash for
an instant upon a long yellow splash on the shirt
bosom and a smaller one upon the chin of Rhein-
gelder — both undoubtedly made by the yolk of an egg.

"Oh, dot is some of your detectiveness," said Rhein-
gelder, shaking all over with a smile. "Veil, I pet
you trinks und cigars all round dot you cannot tell vot
I haf eaten for breakfast."

"Done," said Jolnes. "Sausage, pumpernickel and
coffee."

Rheingelder admitted the correctness of the surmise
and paid the bet. When we had proceeded on our
way I said to Jolnes :

"I thought you looked at the egg spilled on his chin
and shirt front."

"I did," said Jolnes. "That is where I began my
deduction. Rheingelder is a very economical, saving
man. Yesterday eggs dropped in the market to
twenty-eight cents per dozen. To-day they are
quoted at forty-two. Rheingelder ate eggs yesterday,
and to-day he went back to his usual fare. A little
thing like this isn't anything, Whatsup; it belongs to
the primary arithmetic class."

When we boarded the street car we found the seats
all occupied — principally by ladies. Jolnes and I
stood on the rear platform.

208 Sizes and Sevens

About the middle of the car there sat an elderly
man with a short, gray beard, who looked to be the
typical, well-dressed New Yorker. At successive
corners other ladies climbed aboard, and soon three
or four of them were standing over the man, clinging
to straps and glaring meaningly at the man who
occupied the coveted seat. But he resolutely re-
tained his place.

"We New Yorkers," I remarked to Jolncs, "have
about lost our manners, as far as the exercise of them
in public goes."

"Perhaps so," said Jolnes, lightly; "but the man
you evidently refer to happens to be a very chivalrous
and courteous gentleman from Old Virginia. He is
spending a few days in New York with his wife and
two daughters, and he leaves for the South to-night."

"You know him, then?" I said, in amazement.

"I never saw him before we stepped on the car,"
declared the detective, smilingly.

"By the gold tooth of the Witch of Endor!" I
cried, "if you can construe all that from his appear-
ance you are dealing in nothing else than black art."

"The habit of observation — nothing more," said
Jolnes. "If the old gentleman gets off the car before
we do, I think I can demonstrate to you the accuracy
of mv deduction."

Three blocks farther along the gentleman rose to
leave the car. Jolnes addressed him at the door:

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes 209

"Pardon me, sir, but are you not Colonel Hunter, of
Norfolk, Virginia?"

"No, suh," was the extremely courteous answer.
"My name, suh, is Ellison — Major Winfield R. Elli-
son, from Fairfax County, in the same state. I know
a good many people, suh, in Norfolk — the Good-
riches, the Tollivers, and the Crabtrees, suh, but I
never had the pleasure of meeting yo' friend, Colonel
Hunter. I am happy to say, suh, that I am going
back to Virginia to-night, after having spent a week
in yo' city with my wife and three daughters. I shall
be in Norfolk in about ten days, and if you will give
me 3 r o' name, suh, I will take pleasure in looking up
Colonel Hunter and telling him that you inquired
after him, suh."

"Thank you," said Jolnes ; "tell him that Reynolds
sent his regards, if you will be so kind."

I glanced at the great New York detective and saw
that a look of intense chagrin had come upon his
clear-cut features. Failure in the slightest point al-
ways galled Shamrock Jolnes.

"Did you say your three daughters?" he asked of
the Virginia gentleman.

"Yes, suh, my three daughters, all as fine girls as
there are in Fairfax County," was the unswer,

\Yith that Major Ellison stopped the car and be-
gan to descend the step.

Shamrock Jolnes clutched his arm.

210 Sixes and Sevens

"One moment, sir," he begged, in an urbane voice
in which I alone detected the anxiety — "am I not
right in believing that one of the young ladies is an
adopted daughter ?"

"You are, suh," admitted the major, from the
ground, "but how the devil you knew it, suh, is mo'
than I can tell."

"And mo* than I can tell, too," I said, as the car
went on.

Jolnes was restored to his calm, observant serenity
by having wrested victory from his apparent failure ;
so after we got off the car he invited me into a caf£ f
promising to reveal the process of his latest wonderful
feat.

"In the first place," he began after we were com-
fortably seated, "I knew the gentleman was no New
Yorker because he was flushed and uneasy and restless
on account of the ladies that were standing, although
he did not rise and give them his seat. I decided
from his appearance that he was a Southerner rather
than a Westerner.

"Next I began to figure out his reason for not re-
linquishing his seat to a lady when he evidently felt
strongly, but not overpoweringly, impelled to do so.
I very quickly decided upon that. I noticed that one
of his eyes had received a severe jab in one corner,
which was red and inflamed, and that all over his face
were tiny round marks about the size of the end

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes 211

like ovals cut off square at one end.

"Now, there is only one district in New York City
where a man is bound to receive scars and wounds
and indentations of that sort — and that is along the
sidewalks of Twenty-third Street and a portion of
Sixth Avenue south of there. I knew from the im-
prints of trampling French heels on his feet and the
marks of countless jabs in the face from umbrellas
and parasols carried by women in the shopping dis-
trict that he had been in conflict with the amazonian
troops. And as he was a man of intelligent appear-
ance, I knew he would not have braved such dangers
unless he had been dragged thither by his own women
folk. Therefore, when he got on the car his anger
at the treatment he had received was sufficient to
make him keep his seat in spite of his traditions of
Southern chivalry."

"That is all very well," I said, "but why did you in-
sist upon daughters — and especially two daughters?
Why couldn't a wife alone have taken him shopping?"

"There had to be daughters," said Jolnes, calmly.
"If he had only a wife, and she near his own age, he
could have bluffed her into going alone. If he had a
young wife she would prefer to go alone. So there
you are."

"I'll admit that," I said; "but, now, why two

212 Sixes and Sevens

daughters ? And how, in the name of all the prophets,
did you guess that one was adopted when he told
you he had three ?"

"Don't say guess," said Jolnes, with a touch of
pride in his air; "there is no such word in the lexicon
of ratiocination. In Major Ellison's buttonhole there
was a carnation and a rosebud backed by a geranium
leaf. No woman ever combined a carnation and a
rosebud into a boutonniere. Close your eyes, Whatsup,
and give the logic of your imagination a chance.
Cannot you see the lovely Adele fastening the carna-
tion to the lapel so that papa may be gay upon the
street? And then the romping Edith May dancing
up with sisterly jealousy to add her rosebud to the
adornment?"

"And then," I cried, beginning to feel enthusiasm,
"when he declared that he had three daughters"

"I could sec," said Jolnes, "one in the background
who added no flower; and I knew that she must
be "

"Adopted!" I broke in. "I give you every
credit ; but how did you know he was leaving for the
South to-night?"

"In his breast pocket," said the great detective,
"something large and oval made a protuberance.
Good liquor is scarce on trains, and it is a long jour-
ney from New York to Fairfax County."

*'Again, I must bow to you," I said. "And tell

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes 218

me this, so that my last shred of doubt will be
cleared away; why did you decide that he was from
Virginia ?"

"It was very faint, I adtnit," answered Shamrock
Jolnes, "but no trained observer could have failed
to detect the odour of mint in the car."

THE LADY HIGHER UP

NEW YORK CITY, they said, was deserted; and
that accounted, doubtless, for the sounds carrying so
far in the tranquil summer air. The breeze was south-
by-southwest ; the hour was midnight ; the theme was
a bit of feminine gossip by wireless mythology. Three
hundred and sixty-five feet above the heated asphalt
the tiptoeing symbolic deity on Manhattan pointed
her vacillating arrow straight, for the time, in the
direction of her exalted sister on Liberty Island. The
lights of the great Garden were out; the benches in
the Square were filled with sleepers in postures so
strange that beside them the writhing figures in Dor£'s
illustrations of the Inferno would have straightened
into tailor's dummies. The statue of Diana on the
tower of the Garden — its constancy shown by its
weathercock ways, its innocence by the coating of
gold that it has acquired, its devotion to style by its
single, graceful flying scarf, its candour and artless-
ness by its habit of ever drawing the long bow, its
metropolitanism by its posture of swift flight to catch
a Harlem train — remained poised with its arrow

pointed across the upper bay. Held that arrow sped

214

The Lady Higher Up 215

truly and horizontally it would have passed fifty feet
above the head of the heroic matron whose duty it is
to offer a cast-ironical welcome to the oppressed of
other lands.

Seaward this lady gazed, and the furrows between
steamship lines began to cut steerage rates. The
translators, too, have put an extra burden upon her.
"Liberty Lighting the World" (as her creator christ-
ened her) would have had a no more responsible duty,
except for the size of it, than that of an electrician or
a Standard Oil magnate. But to "enlighten" the
world (as our learned civic guardians "Englished" it)
requires abler qualities. And so poor Liberty, instead
of having a sinecure as a mere illuminator, must be
converted into a Chautauqua schoolma'am, with the
oceans for her field instead of the placid, classic lake.
With a fireless torch and an empty head must she dis-
pel the shadows of the world and teach it its A, B, C's.

"Ah, there, Mrs. Liberty !" called a clear, rollick-
ing soprano voice through the still, midnight air.

"Is that you, Miss Diana? Excuse my not turning
my head. I'm not as flighty and whirly-whirly as
some. And 'tis so hoarse I am I can hardly talk on
account of the peanut-hulls left on the stairs in me
throat by that last 'boatload of tourists from Ma-
rietta, Ohio. 'Tis after being a fine evening, miss."

"If you don't mind my asking," came the bell-like
tones of the golden statue, "I'd like to know where

tIC Sixes and Sevens

you got that City Hall brogue. I didn't know that
Liberty was necessarily Irish."

"If ye'd studied the history of art in it* foreign
complications ye'd not need to ask," replied the
offshore statue. "If ye wasn't so light-headed and
giddy ye'd know that I was made by a Dago and pre-
sented to the American people on behalf of the French
Government for the purpose of welcomin' Irish
immigrants into the Dutch city of New York. Tis
that I've been doing night and day since I was erected.
Ye must know, Miss Diana, that 'tis with fttatues the
same as with people — 'tis not their makers nor the
purposes for which they were created that influence
the operations of their tongues at all — it's the asso-
ciations with which they become associated, I'm telling

ye."

"You're dead right," agreed Diana. "I notice it
on myself. If any of the old guys from Olympus were
to come along and hand me any hot air in the ancient
Greek I couldn't tell it from a conversation between
a Coney Island car conductor and a five-cent fare."

"I'm right glad ye've made up your mind to b«
sociable, Miss Diana," said Mrs. Liberty. "Tis a
lonesome life I have down here. Is there anything
doin' up in the city, Miss Diana, dear?"

"Oh, la, la, la! — no," said Diana. "Notice that
la, la, la,' Aunt Liberty? Got that from •Paris by
Night' on the roof garden under me. You'll hear that

The Lady Higher Up 217

'la, la, la* at the Cafe McCann now, along with 'gar-
song.' The bohemian crowd there have become tired
of 'garsong' since O'Rafferty, the head waiter,
punched three of them for calling him it. Oh, no ; the
town's strickly on the bum these nights. Everybody's
away. Saw a downtown merchant on a roof garden
this evening with his stenographer. Show was so dull
he went to sleep. A waiter biting on a dime tip to
see if it was good half woke him up. He looks around
and sees his little pothooks perpetrator. 'H'm!'
says he, 'will you take a letter, Miss De St. Mont-
morency?' 'Sure, in a minute,' says she, 'if you'll
make it an X.'

"That was the best thing happened on the roof.
So you see how dull it is. La, la, la !"

" 'Tis fine ye have it up there in society, Miss Diana.
Ye have the cat show and the horse show and the
military tournaments where the privates look grand
as generals and the generals try to look grand as
floor-walkers. And ye have the Sportsmen's Show,
where the girl that measures 86, 19, 45 cooks break-
fast food in a birch-bark wigwam on the banks of the
Grand Canal of Venice conducted by one of the Van-
derbilts, Bernard McFadden, and the Reverends Dowie
?nd Duss. And ye have the French ball, where the
original Cohens and the Robert Emmet-Sangerbund
Society dance the Highland fling one with another.
And ye have the grand O'Ryan ball, which is the most

218 Sixes and Sevens

beautiful pageant in the world, where the French
students vie with the Tyrolean warblers in doin' the
cake walk. Ye have the best job for a statue in the
whole town, Miss Diana."

" 'Tis weary work," sighed the island statue, "dis-
seminatin' the science of liberty in New York Bay.
Sometimes when I take a peep down at Ellis Island
and see the gang of immigrants I'm supposcu 10 light
up, 'tis tempted I am to blow out the gas and let the
coroner write out their naturalization papers."

"Say, it's a shame, ain't it, to give you the worst
end of it?" came the sympathetic antiphony of the
steeplechase goddess. "It must be awfully lonesome
down there with so much water around you. I don't
see how you ever keep your hair in curl. And that
Mother Hubbard you are wearing went out ten years
ago. I think those sculptor guys ought to be held for
damages for putting iron or marble clothes on a lady.
That's where Mr. St. Gaudens was wise. I'm always
a little ahead of the styles ; but they're coming my way
pretty fast. Excuse my back a moment — I caught
a puff of wind from the north — shouldn't wonder if
things had loosened up in Esopus. There, now ! it's
in the West — I should think that gold plank would
have calmed the air out in that dir: -rion. What were
you saying, Mrs. Liberty?"

"A fine chat I've had with ye, Miss Diana, ma'am,
but I see one of them European steamers a-sailin*

The Lady Higher Up 219

up the Narrows, and I must be attendin' to me duties.
'Tis me job to extend aloft the torch of Liberty to
welcome all them that survive the kicks that the
steerage stewards give 'em while landing Sure 'tis
a great country ye can come to for $8.50, and the doc-
tor waitin' to send ye back home free if he sees yer
eyes red from cryin' for it."

The golden statue veered in the changing breeze,
menacing many points on the horizon with its aureate
arrow.

"So long, Aunt Liberty," sweetly called Diana of
the Tower. "Some night, when the wind's right, I'll
call you up again. But — say ! you haven't got such
a fierce kick coming about your job. I've kept a
pretty good watch on the island of Manhattan since
I've been up here. That's a pretty sick-looking
bunch of liberty chasers they dump down at your end
of it ; but they don't all stay that way. Every little
while up here I see guys signing checks and voting the
right ticket, and encouraging the arts and taking a
bath every morning, that was shoved ashore by a
dock labourer born in the United States who never
earned over forty dollars a month. Don't run down
your job, Aunt liberty; you're all right, all right.

THE GREATER CONEY

"NEXT Sunday ," said Dennis Carnahan, "I'll be
after going down to see the new Coney Island that's
risen like a phoenix bird from the ashes of the old re-
sort. I'm going with Norah Flynn, and we'll fall vic-
tims to all the dry goods deceptions, from the red-
flannel eruption of Mount Vesuvius to the pink silk
ribbons on the race-suicide problems in the incubatof
kiosk.

"Was I there before? I was. I was there last
Tuesday. Did I see the sights? I did not.

"Last Monday I amalgamated myself with the
Bricklayers' Union, and in accordance with the rules I
was ordered to quit work the same day on account of
a sympathy strike with the Lady Salmon Canners 9
Lodge No. 2, of Tacoma, Washington.

" Twas disturbed I was in mind and proclivities bj
losing me job, bein' already harassed in me soul on
account of havin' quarrelled with Norah Flynn a week
before by reason of hard words spoken at the Dairy-
men and Street-Sprinkler Drivers' semi-annual ball,
caused by jealousy and prickly heat and that divil,

Andy Coghliit

220

The Greater Coney 221

"So, I says, it will be Coney for Tuesday; and if
the chutes and the short change and the green-corn
silk between the teeth don't create diversions and get
me feeling better, then I don't know at all.

"Ye will have heard that Coney has received moral
reconstruction. The old Bowery, where they used
to take your tintype by force and give ye knockout
drops before having your palm read, is now called
the Wall Street of the island. The wienerwurst
stands are required by law to keep a news ticker in
'em ; and the doughnuts are examined every four years
by a retired steamboat inspector. The nigger man's
head that was used by the old patrons to throw base-
balls at is now illegal ; and, by order of the Police Com-
missioner the image of a man drivin' an automobile
has been substituted. I hear that the old immoral
amusements have been suppressed. People who used
to go down from New York to sit in the sand and
dabble in the surf now give up their quarters to squeeze
through turnstiles and see imitations of city fires and
floods painted on canvas. The reprehensible and de-
gradin' resorts that disgraced old Coney are said to
be wiped out. The wipin'-out process consists of
raisin' the price from 10 cents to 25 cents, and hirin' a
blonde named Maudie to sell tickets instead of Micky,
the Bowery Bite. That's what they say — I don't
know.

"But to Coney T goes a-Tuesday. I gets ofl the

222 Sixes and Severn

*L' and starts for the glitterin' show. 'Twas a fine
sight. The Babylonian towers and the Hindoo roof
gardens was blazin' with thousands of electric lights,
and the streets was thick with people. 'Tis a true
thing they say that Coney levels all rank. I see
millionaires eatin' popcorn and trampin' along with
the crowd; and I see eight-dollar-a-week clothin'-
store clerks in red automobiles fightin' one another
for who'd squeeze the horn when they come to a corner.

"'I made a mistake,' I says to myself. 'Twas
not Coney I needed. When a man's sad 'tis not scenes
of hilarity he wants. 'Twould be far better for him
to meditate in a graveyard or to attend services at
the Paradise Roof Gardens, ^is no consolation
when a man's lost his sweetheart to order hot corn
and have the waiter bring him the powdered sugar
cruet instead of salt and then conceal himself, or to
have Zozookum, the gipsy palmist, tell him that he
has three children and to look out for another serious
calamity ; price twenty-five cents.

"I walked far away down on the beach, to the ruins
of an old pavilion near one corner of this new private
park, Dreamland. A year ago that old pavilion was
standin' up straight and the old-style waiters was
slammin' a week's supply of clam chowder down in
front of you for a nickel and callin' you 'cully*
friendly, and vice was rampant, and you got back to
Mew York with enough change to take a car at the

The Greater Coney 223

bridge. Now they tell me that they serve Welsh
rabbits on Surf Avenue, and you get the right change
back in the movin'-picture joints.

"I sat down at one side of the old pavilion and
looked at the surf spreadin' itself on the beach, and
thought about the time me and Norah Flynn sat on
that spot last summer. 'Twas before reform struck
the island ; and we was happy. We had tintypes and
chowder in the ribald dives, and the Egyptian Sorcer-
ess of the Nile told Norah out of her hand, while I
was waitin' in the door, that 'twould be the luck of
her to marry a red-headed gossoon with two crooked
legs, and I was overrunnin' with joy on account of the
illusion. And 'twas there that Norah Flynn put her
two hands in mine a year before and we talked of
flats and the things she could cook and the love busi-
ness that goes with such episodes. And that was
Coney as we loved it, and as the hand of Satan was
upon it, friendly and noisy and your money's worth,
with no fence around the ocean and not too many
electric lights to show the sleeve of a black serge
coat against a white shirtwaist.

"I sat with my back to the parks where they had
the moon and the dreams and the steeples corralled,
and longed for the old Coney. There wasn't many
people on the beach. Lots of them was feedin' pen-
nies into the slot machines to see the 'Interrupted
Courtship' in the movin' pictures ; and a good many

224 Sires and Sevens

was takin' the air in the Canals of Venice and some
was breathin' the smoke of the sea battle by actual
warships in a tank filled with real water. A few was
down on the sands enjoy in' the moonlight and the
water. And the heart of me was heavy for the new
morals of the old island, while the bands behind me
played and the sea pounded on the bass drum in
front.

"And directly I got up and walked along the old
pavilion, and there on the other side of, half in the
dark, was a slip of a girl sittin' on the tumble-down
timbers, and unless I'm a liar she was cryin' by herself
there, all alone.

" 'Is it trouble you are in, now, Miss,' says I ; 'and
what's to be done about it?'

"' 'Tis none of your business at all, Denny Carna-
han,' says she, sittin' up straight. And it was the
voice of no other than Norah Flynn.

" 'Then it's not,' says I, 'and we're after having a
pleasant evening, Miss Flynn. Have ye seen the
sights of this new Coney Island, then? I presume ye
have come here for that purpose,' says I.

" 'I have,' says she. 'Me mother and Uncle Tim
they are waiting beyond. 'Tis an elegant evening
I've had. I've seen all the attractions that be.*

" 'Right ye are,' says I to Norah ; and I don't know
when I've been that amused. After disportin' me-
self among the most laughable moral improvements

The Greater Coney 225

of the revised shell games I took meself to the shore
for the benefit of the cool air. 'And did ye observe
the Durbar, Miss Flynn?'

" 'I did,' says she, reflectin' ; 'but His not safe, I'm
thinkin', to ride down them slantin' things into the
water.'

" 'How did ye fancy the shoot the chutes ?' I asks.

"'True, then, Fra afraid of guns,' says Norah.
'They make such noise in my ears. But Uncle Tim,
he shot them, he did, and won cigars. 'Tis a fine time
we had this day, Mr. Carnahan.'

"'I'm glad you've enjoyed yerself,' I says. 'I
suppose you've had a roarin' fine time seein' the sights.
And how did the incubators and the helter-skelter
and the midgets suit the taste of ye?'

"'I — I wasn't hungry,' says Norah, faint. 'But
mother ate a quantity of all of 'em. I'm that pleased
with the fine things in the new Coney Island,' says
she, 'that it's the happiest day I've seen in a long time,
at all.*

" 'Did you see Venice?' says I.

" 'We did,' says she. 'She was a beauty. She was
all dressed in red, she was, with '

"I listened no more to Norah Flynn. I stepped
up and I gathered her in my arms.

" ' 'Tis a story-teller ye are, Norah Flynn,' says I.
*Ye've seen no more of the greater Coney Island than
I have meself. Come, now, tell the truth — ye came

226 Sixes and Seven*

to sit by the old pavilion by the waves where you sat
last summer and made Dennis Carnahan a happy man.
Speak up, and tell the truth.'

"Norah stuck her nose against me vest.

"'I despise it, Denny,' she says, half cryin\
'Mother and Uncle Tim went to see the shows, but I
came down here to think of you. I couldn't bear
the lights and the crowd. Are you forgivin' me,
Denny, for the words we had?'

""Twas me fault,' says I. 'I came here for the
same reason meself. Look at the lights, Norah,' I
says, turning my back to the sea — 'ain't they pretty?'

"'They are,' says Norah, with her eyes shinin';
'and do ye hear the bands playin'? Oh, Denny, I
think I'd like to see it all.'

"'The old Coney is gone, darlin',' I says to her.
'Everything moves. When a man's glad it's not
scenes of sadness he wants. 'Tis a greater Coney
we have here, but we couldn't see it till we got in the
humour for it. Next Sunday, Norah darlin', we'll
see the new place from end to end."

LAW AND ORDER

I FOUND myself in Texas recently, revisiting old
places and vistas. At a sheep ranch where I had so-
journed many years ago, I stopped for a week. And,
as all visitors do, I heartily plunged into the business
at hand, which happened to be that of dipping the
sheep.

Now, this process is so different from ordinary
human baptism that it deserves a word of itself. A
vast iron cauldron with half the fires of Avernus be-
neath it is partly filled with water that soon boils
furiously. Into that is cast concentrated lye, lime,
and sulphur, which is allowed to stew and fume until
the witches' broth is strong enough to scorch the third
arm of Palladino herself.

Then this concentrated brew is mixed in a long,
deep vat with cubic gallons of hot water, and the sheep
are caught by their hind legs and flung into the com-
pound. After being thoroughly ducked by means
of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman detailed
for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an

incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of

227

228 Sixes and Sevens

their constitutions may decree. If you ever caught
an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs
and felt the 750 volts of kicking that he can send
through your arm seventeen times before you can hurl
him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he may
die instead of dry.

But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and
I gladly stretched ourselves on the bank of the nearby
charco after the dipping, glad for the welcome inani-
tion and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-
racking labours. The flock was a small one, and we
finished at three in the afternoon ; so Bud brought
from the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffee-
pot and a big hunk of bread and some side bacon.
Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode
away to the ranch with his force of Mexican traba-
j adores.

While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the
sound of horses' hoofs behind us. Bud's six-shooter
lay in its scabbard ten feet away from his hand.
He paid not the slightest heed to the approaching
horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was so
different from the old-time custom that I marvelled.
Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that
menaced us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed
in black, who might have been a lawyer or a parson or
an undertaker, trotting peaceably along the road by
the arroyo.

Law and Order 229

Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled
sarcastically and sorrowfully.

"You've been away too long," said he. "You don't
need to look around any more when anybody gallops
up behind you in this state, unless something hits
you in the back ; and even then it's liable to be only
a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the
trusts. I never looked at that hombre that rode by;
but I'll bet a quart of sheep dip that he's some double-
dyed son of a popgun out rounding up prohibition
votes."

"Times have changed, Bud," said I, oracularly.
"Law and order is the rule now in the South and the
Southwest."

I caught a cold gleam from Bud's pale blue eyes.

"Not that I " I began, hastily.

"Of course you don't," said Bud warmly. "You
know better. You've lived here before. Law and
order, you say? Twenty years ago we had 'em here.
We only had two or three laws, such as against murder
before witnesses, and being caught stealing horses,
and voting the Republican ticket. But how is it now?
All we get is orders ; and the laws go out of th'.» state.
Them legislators set up there at Austin and don't
do nothing but make laws against kerosene oil and
schoolbooks being brought into the state. I reckon
they was afraid some man would go home some even-
ing after work and light up and get an education and

230 Sires and Sevens

go to work and make laws to repeal aforesaid laws*
Me, I'm for the old days when law and order meant
what they said. A law was a law, and a order was a
order."

"But " I began.

"I was going on," continued Bud, "while this coffee
is boiling, to describe to you a case of genuine law and
order that I knew of once in the times when cases was
decided in the chambers of a six-shooter instead of a
supreme court.

"You've heard of old Ben Kirkman, the cattle
king? His ranch run from the Nueces to the Rio
Grande. In them days, as you know, there was cattle
barons and cattle kings. The difference was this:
when a cattleman went to San An tone and bought
beer for the newspaper reporters and only give them
the number of cattle he actually owned, they wrote
him up for a baron. When he bought 'em cham-
pagne wine and added in the amount of cattle he had
stole, they called him a king.

"Luke Summers was one of his range bosses. And
down to the king's ranch comes one day a bunch of
these Oriental p'eople from New York or Kansas City
or thereabouts. Luke was detailed with a squad to
ride about with 'em, and see that the rattlesnakes got
fair warning when they was coming, and drive the
deer out of their way. Among the bunch was a black-
eyed girl that wore a number two shoe. That's all

Law and Order 231

I noticed about her. But Luke must have seen more,
for he married her one day before the caballard started
back, and went over on Canada Verde and set up a
ranch of his own. I'm skipping over the sentimental
stuff on purpose, because I never saw or wanted to see
any of it. And Luke takes me along with him because
we was old friends and I handled cattle to suit him.

"I'm skipping over much what followed, because
I never saw or wanted to see any of it — but three
years afterward there was a boy kid stumbling and
blubbering around the galleries and floors of Luke's
ranch. I never had no use for kids ; but it seems they
did. And I'm skipping over much what followed until
one day out to the ranch drives in hacks and buck-
boards a lot of Mrs. Summers's friends from the East
— a sister or so and two or three men. One looked
like an uncle to somebody ; and one looked like noth-
ing; and the other one had on corkscrew pants and
spoke in a tone of voice. I never liked a man who
spoke in a tone of voice.

"I'm skipping over much what followed; but one
afternoon when I rides up to the ranch house to get
some orders about a drove of beeves that was to be
shipped, I hears something like a popgun go off. I
Waits at the hitching rack, not wishing to intrude on
private affairs. In a little while Luke comes out and
gives some orders to some of his Mexican hands, and
they go and hitch up sundry and divers vehicles ; and

232 Sixes and Sevens

mighty soon out comes one of the sisters or so and
some of the two or three men. But two of the two or
three men carries between 'em the corkscrew man who
spoke in a tone of voice, and lays him flat down in one
of the wagons. And they all might have been seen
wending their w f ay away.

"'Bud,' says Luke to me, 'I want you to fix up
a little and go up to San Antone with me.'

" 'Let me get on my Mexican spurs,' says I, 'and
I'm your company.'

"One of the sisters or so seems to have stayed at
the ranch with Mrs. Summers and the kid. We
rides to Encinal and catches the International, and
hits San Antone in the morning. After breakfast
Luke steers me straight to the office of a lawyer.
They go in a room and talk and then come out.

"'Oh, there won't be any trouble, Mr. Summers,*
says the lawyer. 'I'll acquaint Judge Simmons with
the facts to-day ; and the matter will be put through
as promptly as possible. Law and order reigns in
this state as swift and sure as anv in the country.'

" 'I'll wait for the decree if it won't take over half
an hour,' savs Luke.

" 'Tut, tut,' says the lawyer man. 'Law must take
its course. Come back day after to-morrow at half-
past nine.'

"At that time me and Luke shows up, and the law-

Law and Order 233

yer hands him a folded document. And Luke writes
him out a check.

"On the sidewalk Luke holds up the paper to me
and puts a finger the size of a kitchen door latch on it
and saj r s:

"'Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of
the child.'

" 'Skipping over much what has happened of which
I know nothing,' says I, 'it looks to me like a split.
Couldn't the lawyer man have made it a strike for
you?'

"'Bud/ says he, in a pained style, 'that child is the
one thing I have to live for. She may go ; but the boy
is mine ! — think of it — I have cus-to-dy of the child.'

" 'All right, 1 says I. 'If it's the law,' let's abide by
it. But I think,' says I, 'that Judge Simmons might
have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the
legal term, in our case.'

"You see, I wasn't inveigled much into the desir-
ableness of having infants around a ranch, except the
kind that feed themselves and sell for so much on the
hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with
that sort of parental foolishness that I never could
understand. All the way riding from the station back
to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his
pocket and laying his finger on the back of it and read-
ing off to me the sum and substance of it. 'Cus-to-dy

234 Sixes and Sevens

of the child, Bud,' says he. 'Don't forget it — cus-
to-dy of the child.'

"But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree
of court obviated, nolle prossed, and remanded for
trial. Mrs. Summers and the kid was gone. They
tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for
San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the
nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.

"Luke takes out his decree once more and reads
off its emoluments.

'"It ain't possible, Bud,' says he, 'for this to be.
It's contrary to law and order. It's wrote as plain
as day here — "Cus-to-dy of the child.'"

" 'There is what you might call a human leaning,'
says I, 'toward smashing 'em both — not to mention
the child.'

" 'Judge Simmons,' goes on Luke, 'is a incorpo*
rated officer of the law. She can't take the bov awav.
He belongs to me by statutes passed and approved by
the state of Texas.'

"'And he's removed from the jurisdiction of mun-
dane mandamuses,' says I, 'by the unearthly statutes
of female partiality. Let us praise the Lord and be

thankful for whatever small mercies ' I begins ;

but I see Luke don't listen to me. Tired as he was, he
calls for a fresh horse and starts back again for the
station.

Law and Order 235

"He come back two weeks afterward, not saying
much.

" 'We can't get the trail,' says he ; 'but we've done
all the telegraphing that the wires'll stand, and we've
got these city rangers they call detectives on the
lookout. In the meantime, Bud,' says he, 'we'll round
up them cows on Brush Creek, and wait for the law
to take its course.'"

And after that we never alluded to allusions, as you
might say.

"Skipping over much what happened in the next
twelve years, Luke was made sheriff of Mojada
County. He made mc his office deputy. Now, don't
get in your mind no wrong apparitions of a office
deputy doing sums in a book or mashing letters in a
cider press. In them days his job was to watch the
back windows so nobody didn't plug the sheriff in the
rear while he was adding up mileage at his desk in
front. And in them days I had qualifications for the
job. And there was law and order in Mojada County,
and schoolbooks, and all the whiskey you wanted, and
the Government built its own battleships instead of
collecting nickels from the school children to do it
with. And, as I say, there was law and order instead
of enactments and restrictions such as disfigure our
umpire state to-day. We had our office at Bildad, the
county seat, from which we emerged forth on neces-

236 Sixes and Sevens

sary occasions to soothe whatever fracases and un-
rest that might occur in our jurisdiction.

"Skipping over much what happened while me and
Luke was sheriff', I want to give you an idea of how
the law was respected in them days. Luke was what
you would call one of the most conscious men in the
world. He never knew much book law, but he had the
inner emoluments of justice and mercy inculcated into
his system. If a respectable citizen shot a Mexican
or held up a train and cleaned out the safe in the ex-
press car, and Luke ever got hold of him, he'd give the
guilty party such a reprimand and a cussin* out that
he'd probable never do it again. But once let some-
body steal a horse (unless it was a Spanish pony),
or cut a wire fence, or otherwise impair the peace and
indignity of Mojada County, Luke and me would
be on 'em with habeas corpuses and smokeless powder
and all the modern inventions of equity and etiquette.

"We certainly had our county on a basis of lawful-
ness. I've known persons of Eastern classification
with little spotted caps and buttoned-up shoes to get
off the train at Bildad and eat sandwiches at the
railroad station without being shot at or even roped
and drug about by the citizens of the town.

"Luke had his own ideas of legality and justice. He
was kind of training me to succeed him when he went
out of office. He was always looking ahead to the
time when he'd quit sheriffing. What he wanted to do

Law and Order 237

was to build a yellow house with lattice-work under
the porch and have hens scratching in the yard. The
one main tiling in his mind seemed to be the yard.

"'Bud,' he says to me, 'by instinct and sentiment
I'm a contractor. I want to be a contractor. That's
what I'll be when I get out of office.'

"'What kind of a contractor?' says I. 'It sounds
like a kind of a business to me. You ain't going to
haul cement or establish branches or work on a rail-
road, arc you ?'

" 'You don't understand,' says Luke. 'I'm tired of
space and horizons and territory and distances and
things like that. What I want is reasonable con-
traction. I want a yard with a fence around it that
you can go out and set on after supper and listen to
whip-poor-wills,' says Luke.

"That's the kind of a man he was. He was home-
like, although he'd had bad luck in such investments.
But he never talked about them times on the ranch. It
seemed like he'd forgotten about it. I wondered how,
with his ideas of yards and chickens and notions of
lattice-work, he'd seemed to have got out of his mind
that kid of his that had been taken away from him,
unlawful, in spite of his decree of court. But he
wasn't a man you could ask about such things as he
didn't refer to in his own conversation.

"I reckon he'd put all his emotions and ideas into
being sheriff. I've read in books about men that was

238 Sires and Sevens

disappointed in these poetic and fine-haired and high-
collared affairs with ladies renouncing truck of that
kind and wrapping themselves up into some occupation
like painting pictures, or herding sheep, or science,
or teaching school — something to make 'em forget
Well, I guess that was the way with Luke. But,
as he couldn't paint pictures, he took it out in round-
ing up horse thieves and in making Mojada County
a safe place to sleep in if you was well armed and
not afraid of requisitions or tarantulas.

"One day there passes through Bildad a bunch of
these money investors from the East, and they stopped
off there, Bildad being the dinner station on the I. &
G. N. They was just coming back from Mexico look-
ing after mines and such. There was five of 'em —
four solid parties, with gold watch chains, that would
grade up over two hundred pounds on the hoof, and
one kid about seventeen or eighteen.

"This youngster had on one of them cowboy suits
such as tenderfoots bring West with 'em; and you
could see he was aching to wing a couple of Indians
or bag a grizzly or two with the little pearl-handled
gun he had buckled around his waist.

"I walked down to the depot to keep an eye on the
outfit and see that tLey didn't locate any land or
scare the cow ponies hitched in front of Murchi son's
store or act otherwise unseemly. Luke was away
after a gang of cattle thieves down on the Frio, and I

Law and Order 289

always looked after the law and order when he wasn't
there.

"After dinner this boy comes out of the dining-room
while the train was waiting, and prances up and down
the platform ready to shoot all antelope, lions, or
private citizens that might endeavour to molest or
come too near him. He was a good-looking kid;
only he was like all them tenderfoots — he didn't
know a law-and-order town when he saw it.

"By and by along comes Pedro Johnson, the pro-
prietor of the Crystal Palace chili-con-carne stand in
Bildad. Pedro was a man who liked to amuse him-
self ; so he kind of herd rides this youngster, laughing
at him, tickled to death. I was too far away to hear,
but the kid seems to mention some remarks to Pedro,
and Pedro goes up and slaps him about nine feet
away, and laughs harder than ever. And then the
boy gets up quicker than he fell and jerks out his little
pearl-handle, and — bing! bing! bing! Pedro gets
it three times in special and treasured portions of his
carcass. I saw the dust fly off his clothes every time
the bullets hit. Sometimes them little thirty-twos
cause worry at close range.

"The engine bell was ringing, and the train starting
off slow. I goes up to the kid and places him under
arrest, and takes away his gun. But the first thing
I knew that caballard of capitalists makes a break for
the train. One of 'em hesitates in front of me for a

240 Sixes and Sevens

second, and kind of smiles and shoves his hand up
against my chin, and I sort of laid down on the plat-
form and took a nap. I never was afraid of guns;
but I don't want any person except a barber to take
liberties like that with my face again. When I woke
up, the whole outfit — train, boy, and all — was gone.
I asked about Pedro, and they told me the doctor said
he would recover provided his wounds didn't turn
out to be fatal.

"When Luke got back three days later, and I told
him about it, he was mad all over.

" 'Why'n't you telegraph to San Antone,' he asks,
'and have the bunch arrested there?'

" 'Oh, well,' says I, 'I always did admire telegraphy ;
but astronomy was what I had took up just then.'
That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his
hands.

"Luke got madder and madder. He investigate*
and finds in the depot a card one of the men had
dropped that gives the address of some hombre called
Scudder in New York City.

"'Bud,' says Luke, 'I'm going after that bunch.
I'm going there and get the man or boy, as you saj
he was, and bring him back. I'm sheriff of Mojada
County, and I shall keep law and order in its precincts
while I'm able to draw a gun. And I want you to go
with me. No Eastern Yankee can shoot up a respect*
able and well-known citizen of Bildad, 'specially witk

Law and Order 241

a thirty-two calibre, and escape the law. Pedro
Johnson,' says Luke, 'is one of our most prominent
citizens and business men. I'll appoint Sam Bell
acting sheriff with penitentiary powers while I'm
away, and you and me will take the six forty-five
northbound to-morrow evening and follow up this
trail.'

"'I'm your company,' says I. 'I never see this
New York, but I'd like to. But, Luke,' says I, 'don't
you have to have a dispensation or a habeas corpus or
something from the state, when you reach out that
far for rich men and malefactors?'

" 'Did I have a requisition,' says Luke, 'when I went
over into the Brazos bottoms and brought back Bill
Grimes and two more for holding up the Interna-
tional? Did me and you have a search warrant or a
posse comitatus when we rounded up them six Mexican
cow thieves down in Hidalgo? It's my business to
keep order in Mojada County.'

" 'And it's my business as office deputy,' says I, 'to
see that business is carried on according to law.
Between us both we ought to keep things pretty well
cleaned up.'

"So, the next day, Luke packs a blanket and some
collars and his mileage book in a haversack, and him
and me hits the breeze for New York. It was a power-
ful long ride. The seats in the cars was too short for
six-footers like us to sleep comfortable on; and the

242 Sites and Sevens

conductor had to keep us from getting off at every
town that had five-story houses in it. But wc got
there finally; and we seemed to see right away that
he was right about it.

"'Luke,* says I, 'as office deputy and from a law
standpoint, it don't look to me like this place is prop-
erly and legally in the jurisdiction of Mo j ad a County,
Texas.'

"'From the standpoint of order/ says he, 'it's
amenable to answer for its sins to the properly ap-
pointed authorities from Bildad to Jerusalem. 1

"'Amen,' says I. 'But let's turn our trick sudden,
and ride. I don't like the looks of this place.'

"'Think of Pedro Johnson,' says Luke, 'a friend of
mine and yours shot down by one of these gilded
abolitionists at his very door !'

" 'It was at the door of the freight depot,' says I.
'But the law will not be balked at a quibble like that.*

"We put up at one of them big hotels on Broadway.
The next morning I goes down about two miles of
stairsteps to the bottom and hunts for Luke. It
ain't no use. It looks like San Jacinto day in San
An tone. There's a thousand folks milling around in
a kind of a roofed-over plaza with marble pavements
and trees growing right out of 'em, and I see no more
chance of finding Luke than if we was hunting each
other in the big pear flat down below Old Fort Eweil.

Law and Order 248

But goon Luke and me runs together in one of the
turns of them marble alleys.

" 'It ain't no use, Bud,' says he, *I can't find no
place to eat at. I've been looking for restaurant
signs and smelling for ham all over the camp. But
I'm used to going hungry when I have to. Now,*
says he, Tin going out and get a hack and ride down
to the address on this Scudder card. You stay here
and try to hustle some grub. But I doubt if you'll
find it. I wish we'd brought along some cornmeal
and bacon and beans. I'll be back when I see this
Scudder, if the trail ain't wiped out.'

"So I starts foraging for breakfast. For the hon-
our of old Mojada County I didn't want to seem green
to them abolitionists, so every time I turned a corner
in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or
counter I see and looks around for grub. If I didn't
see what I wanted I asked for something else. In
about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story
magazines, and seven or eight railroad time-tables in
my pockets, and never a smell of coffee or bacon to
point out the trail.

"Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game
kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that
she called Number S. I went in and shut the door,
and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a
stool before a shelf and waited. Thinks I, 'Thif is

244 Sixes and Sevens

a private dining-room. 5 But no waiter never came.
When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out
again.

"'Did you get what you wanted?' says she.

" 'No, ma'am, 5 says I. 'Not a bite. 5

" 'Then there's no charge,' says she.

" 'Thanky, ma'am,' says I, and I takes up the trail
again.

"By and by I thinks I'll shed etiquette ; and I picks
up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow
buttons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the
caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays
my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot
Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a little
table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid
he'd break it.

"I takes the chair across the table from him ; and
he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going
to get up.

'"Keep still, son, 5 says I. 'You're apprehended,
arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go
on and hammer that Qgg some more if it's the inside
of it you want. Now, what did you shoot Mr. John-
son, of Bildad, for? 5

" 'And may I ask who you are? 5 says he.

"'You may, 5 says I. 'Go ahead. 5

'"I suppose you 5 re on, 5 says this kid, without
batting his eyes. 'But what are you eating? Here,

Law and Order 245

waiter! 5 he calls out, raising his finger. 'Take this
gentleman's order.*

" 'A beefsteak, 5 says I, 'and some fried eggs and a
can of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice. 5

"We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then
he says :

" 'What are you going to do about that shooting?
I had a right to shoot that man, 5 says he. 'He called
me names that I couldn 5 t overlook, and then he struck
me. He carried a gun, too. What else could I do? 5

" 'We'll have to take you back to Texas, 5 says I.

" 'I'd like to go back,' says the boy, with a kind of
a grin — 'if it wasn't on an occasion of this kind.
It's the life I like. I've always wanted to ride and
shoot and live in the open air ever since I can remem-
ber.'

" 'Who was this gang of stout parties you took this
trip with?' I asks.

" 'My stepfather, 5 says he, 'and some business part-
ners of his in some Mexican mining and land schemes. 5

" 'I saw you shoot Pedro Johnson, 5 says I, 'and I
took that little popgun away from you that you did
it with. And when I did so I noticed three or four
little scars in a row over your right eyebrow. You 5 ve
been in rookus before, haven 5 t you? 5

" Tve had these scars ever since I can remember,'
says he. 'I don't know how they came there. 5

"'Was you ever in Texas before? 5 says I.

246 Sixes and Sevens

"'Not that I remember of,' says he. 'But I
thought I had when we struck the prairie country.
But I guess I hadn't.'

"'Have you got a mother?' I asks.

" 'She died five years ago,' says he.

"Skipping over the most of what followed — when
Luke came back I turned the kid over to him. He
had seen Scudder and told him what he wanted;
and it seems that Scudder got active with one of these
telephones as soon as he left. For in about an hour
afterward there comes to our hotel some of these
city rangers in everyday clothes that they call detec-
tives, and marches the whole outfit of us to what they
call a magistrate's court. They accuse Luke of at-
tempted kidnapping, and ask him what he has to say.

"'This snipe,' says Luke to the judge, 'shot and
wilfully punctured with malice and forethought one
of the most respected and prominent citizens of the
town of Bildad, Texas, Your Honor. And in so doing
laid himself liable to the penitence of law and order.
And I hereby make claim and demand resitution of
the State of New York City for the said alleged crimi-
nal; and I know he done it.'

"'Have you the usual and necessary requisition
papers from the governor of your state?' asks the
judge.

"'My usual papers,' says Luke, 'was taken away
from me at the hotel by these gentlemen who represent

Law and Order 247

law and order in your city. They was two Colt's
.45's that I've packed for nine years ; and if I don't
get 'em back, there'll be more trouble. You can
ask anybody in Mojada County about Luke Sum-
mers. I don't usually need any other kind of papers
for what I do.'

"I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says:

" 'Your Honor, the aforesaid defendent, Mr. Luke
Summers, sheriff of Mojada County, Texas, is as
fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the statutes
and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But
he '

"The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer
and asks who I am.

"'Bud Oakley,' says I. 'Office deputy of the
sheriff's office of Mojada County, Texas. Represent-
ing,' says I, 'the Law. Luke Summers,' I goes on,
'represents Order. And if Your Honor will give me
about ten minutes in private talk, I'll explain the
whole thing to you, and show you the equitable and
legal requisition papers which I carry in my pocket.'

"The judge kind of half smiles and says he will
talk with me in his private room. In there I put the
whole thing up to him in such language as I had, and
when we goes outside, he announces the verdict that
the young man is delivered into the hands of the
Texas authorities ; and calls the next case.

"Skipping over much of what happened on the way

248 Sires and Sevens

back, I'll tell you how the thing wound up in Bildad.

"When we got the prisoner in the sheriff's office, I
says to Luke:

" 'You remember that kid of yours — that two-year
old that they stole away from you when the bust-up
come?'

"Luke looks black and angry. He'd never let any
body talk to him about that business, and he never
mentioned it himself.

"'Toe the mark/ says I. 'Do you remember when
he was toddling around on the porch and fell down on
a pair of Mexican spurs and cut four little holes over
his right eye? Look at the prisoner,' says I, 'look at
his nose and the shape of his head and — why, you old
fool, don't you know your own son? — I knew him,'
says I, 'when he perforated Mr. Johnson at the depot.*

"Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never
saw him lose his nerve before.

" 'Bud,' says he, 'I've never had that boy out of my
mind one day or one night since he was took away.
But I never let on. But can we hold hin:? — Can we
make him stay ? — I'll make the best man of him that
ever put his foot in a stirrup. Wait a minute,* says
he, all excited and out of his mind — 'I've got some-
thing here in my desk — I reckon it'll hold legal yet —
I've looked at it a thousand times — "Cus-to-dy of
the child," says Luke —"Cus-to-dy of the child." We

Law and Order 249

can hold him on that, can't we? Le'me see if I can
find that decree.'

"Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces.

"'Hold on,' says I. 'You are Order and I'm
Law. You needn't look for that paper, Luke. It
ain't a decree any more. It's requisition papers.
It's on. file in that Magistrate's office in New York. I
took it along when we went, because I was office
deputy and knew the law.'

" 'I've got him back,' says Luke. 'He's mine again.
I never thought '

" 'Wait a minute,' says I. 'We've got to have law
and order. You and me have got to preserve 'em
both in Mojada County according to our oath and
conscience. The kid shot Pedro Johnson, one of
Bildad's most prominent and '

"'Oh, hell!' says Luke. 'That don't amount to
anything. That fellow was half Mexican, anyhow.' "

XXIi

TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY

IN BEHALF of Sir Walter's soothing plant let us
look into the case of Martin Burney.

They were constructing the Speedway along the
west bank of the Harlem River. The grub-boat of
Dennis Corrigan, sub-contractor, was moored to a tree
on the bank. Twenty-two men belonging to the
little green island toiled there at the sinew-cracking
labour. One among them, who wrought in the kitchen
of the grub-boat was of the race of the Goths. Over
them all stood the exorbitant Corrigan, harrying
them like the captain of a galley crew. He paid them
so little that most of the gang, work as they might,
earned little more than food and tobacco; many of
them were in debt to him. Corrigan boarded them all
in the grub-boat, and gave them good grub, for he got
it back in work.

Martin Burney was furthest behind of all. He was

a little man, all muscles and hands and feet, with a

gray-red, stubbly beard. He was too light for the

work, which would have glutted the capacity of a

steam shoveL

250

Transformation of Martin Burney 251

The work was hard. Besides that, the banks of the
river were humming with mosquitoes. As a child in
a dark room fixes his regard on the pale light of a
comforting window, these toilers watched the sun that
brought around the one hour of the day that tasted
less bitter. After the sundown supper they would
huddle together on the river bank, and send the mos-
quitoes whining and eddying back from the malignant
puffs of twenty-three reeking pipes. Thus socially
banded against the foe, they wrenched out of the hour
a few well-smoked drops from the cup of joy.

Each week Burney grew deeper in debt. Corrigan
kept a small stock of goods on the boat, which he sold
to the men at prices that brought him no loss. Burney
was a good customer at the tobacco counter. One
sack when he went to work in the morning and one
when he came in at night, so much was his account
swelled daily. Burney was something of a smoker.
Yet it was not true that he ate his meals with a pipe
in his mouth, which had been said of him. The little
man was not discontented. He had plenty to eat,
plenty of tobacco, and a tyrant to curse; so why
should not he, an Irishman, be well satisfied?

One morning as he was starting with the others for
work he stopped at the pine counter for his usual sack
of tobacco.

"There's no more for ye," said Corrigan. "Your
account's closed. Ye are a losing investment. No,

252 Sires and Sevens

not even tobaccy, my son. No more tobaccjr on
account. If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but
the smoke of ye has all ascended. Tis my advice
that ye hunt a new job."

"I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day,
Mr. Corrigan," said Burney, not quite understanding
that such a thing could happen to him.

"Earn it," said Corrigan, "and then buy it.**

Burney stayed on. He knew of no other job. At
first he did not realize that tobacco had got to be his
father and mother, his confessor and sweetheart, and
wife and child.

For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the
other men's sacks, and then they shut him off, one and
all. They told him, rough but friendly, that of all
things in the world tobacco must be quickest forth-
coming to a fellow-man desiring it, but that beyond
the immediate temporary need requisition upon the
store of a comrade is pressed with great danger to
friendship.

Then the blackness of the pit arose and filled the
heart of Burney. Sucking the corpse of his deceased
dudhecn, he staggered through his duties with his
barrovvful of stones and dirt, feeling for the first time
that the curse of Adam was upon him. Other men
bereft of a pleasure might have recourse to other
delights, but Burney had only two comforts in life.
One was his pipe, the other was an ecstatic hope that

Transformation of Martin Burney 259

there would be no Speedways to build on the other
side of Jordan.

At meal times he would let the other men go first
into the grub-boat, and then he would go down on his
hands and knees, grovelling fiercely upon the ground
where they had been sitting, trying to find some stray
crumbs of tobacco. Once he sneaked down the river
bank and filled his pipe with dead willow leaves. At
the first whiff of the smoke he spat in the direction of
the boat and put the finest curse he knew on Corrigan
— one that began with the first Corrigans born on
earth and ended with the Corrigans that shall hear the
trumpet of Gabriel blow. He began to hate Corrigan
with all his shaking nerves and soul. Even murder
occurred to him in a vague sort of way. Five days he
went without the taste of tobacco — he who had
smoked all day and thought the night misspent in
which he had not awakened for a pipeful or two
under the bedclothes.

One day a man stopped at the boat to say that there
was work to be had in the Bronx Park, where a large
number of labourers were required in making some
improvements.

After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the
river bank away from the maddening smell of the
others' pipes. He sat down upon a stone. He was
thinking he would set out for the Bronx. At least he
could earn tobacco there. What if the books did say

254 Sixes and Sevens

he owed Corrigan? Any man's work was worth his
keep. But then he hated to go without getting even
with the hard-hearted screw who had put his pipe out.
Was there any way to do it?

Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of
the race of Goths, who worked in the kitchen. He
grinned at Burney's elbow, and that unhappy man,
full of race animosity and holding urbanity in con-
tempt, growled at him: "What d'ye want, yc

Dago?"

Tony also contained a grievance — and a plot.
He, too, was a Corrigan hater, and had been primed
to see it in others.

"How you like-a Mr. Corrigan?" he asked. "You
Ihink-a him a nice-a man?"

"To hell with *m," he said. "May his liver turn
to water, and the bones of him crack in the cold of his
heart. May dog fennel grow upon his ancestors*
graves, and the grandsons of his children be born
without eyes. May whiskey turn to clabber in his
mouth, and every time he sneezes may he blister the
soles of his feet. And the smoke of his pipe — may it
make his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass
that his cows eat and poison the butter that he spreads
on his bread."

Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties
of this imagery, he gathered from it the conviction
that it was sufficiently anti-Corrigan in its tendency.

Transformation of Martin Burney 255

So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he
sat by Burney upon the stone and unfolded his plot-
It was very simple in design. Every day after
dinner it was Corrigan's habit to sleep for an hour in
his bunk. At such times it was the duty of the cook
and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noist
might disturb the autocrat. The cook always spent
this hour in walking exercise. Tony's plan wai this.
After Corrigan should be asleep he (Tony) and
Burney would cut the mooring ropes that held the
boat to the shore. Tony lacked the nerve to do the
deed alone. Then the awkward boat would swing out
into a swift current and surely overturn against a
rock there was below.

"Come on and do it," said Burney. "It the back
of ye aches from the lick he gave ye as the pit of me
stomach does for the taste of a bit of smoke, we can't
cut the ropes too quick."

"All a-right," said Tony. "But better wait Txmt-a
ten minute more. Give-a Corrigan plenty time get
good-a sl«ep."

They Traited, sitting upon the stone. The rest of
the men were at work out of sight around a bend in the
road. Everything would have gone well — except,
perl laps, with Corrigan, had not Tony been moved t#
dtforate the plot with its conventional accawrpani-
n»<M%t. He was of dramatic blood, and perhaps he
intuitively divined the appendage to villainous mach-*

256 Sixes and Sevens

inations as prescribed by the stage. He pulled from
his shirt bosom a long, black, beautiful, venomous
cigar, and handed it to Burney.

"You like-a smoke while we wait?" he asked.

Burney clutched it and snapped off the end as a
terrier bites at a rat. He laid it to his lips like a
long-lost sweetheart. When the smoke began to draw
he gave a long, deep sigh, and the bristles of his gray-
red moustache curled down over the cigar like the
talons of an eagle. Slowly the red faded from the
whites of his eyes. He fixed his gaze dreamily upon
the hills across the river. The minutes came and
went.

" 'Bout time to go now," said Tony. "That damn-a
Corrigan he be in the reever very quick."

Burney started out of his trance with a grunt. He
turned his head and gazed with a surprised and pained
severity at his accomplice. He took the cigar partly
from his mouth, but sucked it back again immediately,
chewed it lovingly once or twice, and spoke, in virulent
puffs, from the corner of his mouth :

"What is it, ye yaller hay then? Would ye lay
contrivances against the enlightened races of the
earth, ye instigator of illegal crimes? Would ye seek
to persuade Martin Burney into the dirty tricks of an
indecent Dago? Would ye be for murdcrm* your
benefactor, the good man that gives ye food and work?
Take that, ye punkin-coloured assassin !"

Transformation of Martin Burney 257

The torrent of Burney's indignation carried with it
bodily assault. The toe of his shoe sent the would-be
cutter of ropes tumbling from his seat.

Tony arose and fled. His vendetta he again rele-
gated to the files of things that might have been.
Beyond the boat he fled and away-away ; he was afraid
to remain.

Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late co-
plotter disappear. Then he, too, departed, setting
his face in the direction of the Bronx.

In his wake was a rank and pernicious trail of
noisome smoke that brought peace to his heart and
drove the birds from the roadside into the deepest
thickets.

XXIII
THE CALIPH AND THE CAD

SURELY there is no pastime more diverting than
that of mingling, incognito, with persons of wealth
and station. Where else but in those circles can one
see life in its primitive, crude state unhampered by the
conventions that bind the dwellers in a lower sphere?

There was a certain Caliph of Bagdad who was
accustomed to go down among the poor and lowly for
the solace obtained from the relation of their tales and
histories. Is it not strange that the humble and
poverty-stricken have not availed themselves of the
pleasure they might glean by donning diamonds and
silks and playing Caliph among the haunts of the
upper world?

There was one who saw the possibilities of thus
turning the tables on Haroun al Raschid. His name
was Corny Brannigan, and he was a truck driver for a
Canal Street importing firm. And if you read further
you will learn how he turned upper Broadway into
Bagdad and learned something about himself that he
did not know before.

Many people would have called Corny a snob —

The Caliph and the Cad 250)

preferably by means of a telephone. Hia chief in-
terest in life, his chosen amusement, and his sole diver-
sion after working hours, was to place himself in
juxtaposition — since he could not hope to mingle
— with people of fashion and means.

Every evening after Corny had put up his team and
dined at a lunch-counter that made immediateneas a
specialty, he would clothe himself in evening raiment
as correct as any you will see in the palm rooms-
Then he would betake himself to that ravishing, radi-
ant roadway devoted to Thespis, Thais, and Bacchus.

For a time he would stroll about the lobbies of the
best hotels, his soul steeped in blissful content. Beau-
tiful women, cooing like doves, but feathered like birds
of Paradise, flicked him with their robes as they
passed. Courtly gentlemen attended them, gallant
and assiduous. And Corny's heart within him swelled
like Sir Lancelot's, for the mirror spoke to him as he
passed and said: "Corny, lad, there's not a guy
among 'em that looks a bit the sweller than ycrself.
And you drivin' of a truck and them swearin' off their
taxes and pi ay in' the red in art galleries with the best
in the land !"

And the mirrors spake the truth. Mr. Corny
Brannigan had acquired the outward polish, if nothing
more. Long and keen observation of polite society
had gained for him its manner, its genteel air, and —
most difficult of acquirement — its repose and ease —

260 Sixes and Sevens

Now and then in the hotels Corny had managed
conversation and temporary acquaintance with sub-
stantial, if not distinguished, guests. With many of
these he had exchanged cards, and the ones he received
he carefully treasured for his own use later. Leaving
the hotel lobbies, Corny would stroll leisurely about,
lingering at the theatre entrance, dropping into the
fashionable restaurants as if seeking some friend. He
rarely patronized any of these places ; he was no bee
come to suck honey, but a butterfly flashing his wings
among the flowers whose calyces held no sweets for
him. His wages were not large enough to furnish him
with more than the outside garb of the gentleman.
To have been one of the beings he so cunningly
imitated, Corny Brannigan would have given his right
hand.

One night Corny had an adventure. After absorb-
ing the delights of an hour's lounging in the principal
hotels along Broadway, he passed up into the strong-
hold of Thespis. Cab drivers hailed him as a likely
fare, to his prideful content. Languishing eyes were
turned upon him as a hopeful source of lobsters and
the delectable, ascendant globules of effervescence.
These overtures and unconscious compliments Corny
swallowed as manna, and hoped Bill, the off horse,
would be less lame in the left forefoot in the morning.

Beneath a cluster of milky globes of electric light
Corny paused to admire the sheen of his low-cut

The Caliph and the Cad 261

patent leather shoes. The building occupying the
angle was a pretentious cafe. Out of this came a
couple, a lady in a white, cobwebby evening gown, with
a lace wrap like a wreath of mist thrown over it, and a
man, tall, faultess, assured — too assured. They
moved to the edge of the sidewalk and halted. Corny 's
eye, ever alert for "pointers" in "swell" behaviour,
took them in with a sidelong glance.

"The carriage is not here," said the lady. "You
ordered it to wait?"

"I ordered it for nine-thirty," said the man. "It
should be here now."

A familiar note in the lady's voice drew a more
especial attention from Corny. It was pitched in a
key well known to him. The soft electric shone upon
her face. Sisters of sorrow have no quarters fixed
for them. In the index to the book of breaking hearts
you will find that Broadway follows very soon after
the Bowery. This lady's face was sad, and her voice
was attuned with it. They waited, as if for the car-
riage. Corny waited too, for it was out of doors, and
he was never tired of accumulating and profiting by
knowledge of gentlemanly conduct.

"Jack," said the lady, "don't be angry. I've done
everything I could to please you this evening. Why
do you act so?"

"Oh, you're an angel," said the man. "Depend
upon woman to throw the blame upon a man."

262 Sixes and Sevens

"I'm not blaming you. I'm only trying to make
you happy."

"You go about it in a very peculiar way."

"You have been cross with me all the evening with-
out any cause."

"Oh, there isn't any cause except — you make m*
tired."

Corny took out his card case and looked over hia
collection. He selected one that read: "Mr. R.
Lionel Why te-Melvillc, Bloomsbury Square, London."
This card he had inveigled from a tourist at the King
Edward Hotel. Corny stepped up to the man and
presented it with a correctly formal air.

"May I ask why I am selected for the honour J"
asked the lady's escort.

Now, Mr. Corny Brannigan had a very wise habit
of saying little during his imitations of the Caliph of
Bagdad. The advice of Lord Chesterfield: "Wear
a black coat and hold your tongue," he believed in
without having heard. But now speech was demanded
and required of him.

"No gent," said Corny, "would talk to a lady like
you done. Fie upon you, Willie ! Even if she hap-
pens to be your wife you ought to have more respect
for your clothes than to chin her back that way. May-
be it ain't my butt-in, but it goes, anyhow — you
strike me as bein' a whole lot to the wrong."

The lady's escort indulged in more elegantly ex"

The Caliph and the Cad 263

pressed but fetching repartee. Corny, eschewing his
truck driver's vocabulary, retorted as nearly as he
could in polite phrases. Then diplomatic relations
were severed; there was a brief but lively set-to with
other than oral weapons, from which Corny came
forth easily victor.

A carriage dashed up, driven by a tardy and solic-
itous coachman.

"Will you kindly open the door for me?" asked the
lady. Corny assisted her to enter, and took off his
hat. The escort was beginning to scramble up from
the sidewalk.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Corny, "if he's
your man."

"He's no man of mine," said the lady. "Perhaps
he — but there's no chance of his being now. Drive
home v Michael. If you care to take this — with
my thanks."

Three red roses were thrust out through the carriage
window into Corny's hand. He took them, and the
hand for an instant ; and then the carriage sped away.

Corny gathered his foe's hat and began to brush the
dust from his clothes.

"Come along," said Corny, taking the other man
by the arm.

His late opponent was yet a little dazed by the hard
knocks he had received. Corny led him carefully into
a saloon three doors away.

264 Sixes and Sevens

"The drinks for us," said Corny, "me and my
friend."

"You're a queer feller," said the lady's late escort
— "lick a man and then want to set 'em up."

"You're my best friend," said Corny eexultantly.
"You don't understand? Well, listen. You just put
me wise to somethin'. I been playin' gent a long time,
thinkin' it was just the glad rags I had and nothin'
else. Say — you're a swell, ain't you? Well, you
trot in that class, I guess. I don't ; but I found out
one thing — I'm a gentleman, by — and I know it
now. What'll you have to drink?"

XXIV
THE DIAMOND OF KALI

1HE original news item concerning the diamond of
the goddess Kali was handed in to the city editor.
He smiled and held it for a moment above the waste-
basket. Then he laid it back on his desk and said:
"Try the Sunday people ; they might work something
out of it."

The Sunday editor glanced the item over and said :
"H'm !" Afterward he sent for a reporter and ex-
panded his comment.

"You might see General Ludlow," he said, "and
make a story out of this if you can. Diamond stories
are a drug ; but this one is big enough to be found by a
scrubwoman wrapped up in a piece of newspaper and
tucked under the corner of the hall linoleum. Find
out first if the General has a daughter who intends to
go on the stage. If not, you can go ahead with the
story. Run cuts of the Kohinoor and J. P. Morgan's
collection, and work in pictures of the Kimberley mines
and Barney Barnato. Fill in with a tabulated com-
parison of the values of diamonds, radium, and veal
cutlets since the meat strike ; and let it run to a half

page."

265

266 Sixes and Sevens

On the following day the reporter turned in his
story. The Sunday editor let his eye sprint along its
lines. "H'm!" he said again. This time the copy
went into the waste-basket with scarcely a flutter.

The reporter stiffened a little around the lips; but
he was whistling softly and contentedly between his
teeth when I went over to talk with him about it an
hour later.

"I don't blame the 'old man'," said he, magnani-
mously, "for cutting it out. It did sound like funny
business ; but it happened exactly as I wrote it. Say,
why don't you fish that story out of the w.-b. and use
it? Seems to me it's as good as the toinmyrot yov»
write. "

I accepted the tip, and if you read further you will
learn the facts about the diamond of the goddess
Kali as vouched for by one of the most reliable re-
porters on the staff.

Gen. Marcellus B. Ludlow lives in one of those
decaying but venerated old red-brick mansions in
the West Twenties. The General is a member of an
old New York family that does not advertise. He is
a globe-trotter by birth, a gentleman by predilection,
a millionaire by the mercy of Heaven, and a con*
noisseur of precious stones by occupation.

The reporter was admitted promptly when he made
himself known at the General's residence at about
eight thirty on the evening that he received the assign-

The Diamond of Kali 267

ment. In the magnificent library he was greeted by
the distinguished traveller and connoisseur, a tall,
erect gentleman in the early fifties, with a nearly white
moustache, and a bearing so soldierly that one per-
ceived in him scarcely a trace of the National Guards-
man. His weather-beaten countenance lit up with a
charming smile of interest when the reporter made
known his errand.

"Ah, you have heard of my latest find. I shall
be glad to show you what I conceive to be one of the
six most valuable blue diamonds in existence."

The General opened a small safe in a corner of the
library and brought forth a plush-covered bor.
Opening this, he exposed to the reporter's bewildered
gaze a huge and brilliant diamond — nearly as large
as a hailstone.

"This stone," 6aid the General, "is something
more than a mere jewel. It once formed the central
eye of the three-eyed goddess Kali, who is worshipped
by one of the fiercest and most fanatical tribes of
India. If you will arrange yourself comfortably I
will give you a brief history of it for your paper."

General Ludlow brought a decanter of whiskey and
glasses from a cabinet, and set a comfortable armchair
for the luckv scribe.

"The Plmnsigars, or Thugs, of India," began the
General, "are the most dangerous and dreaded of the
tribes of North India. They ar« extremist! in

268 Sixes and Sevens

religion, and worship the horrid goddess Kali in the
form of images. Their rites are interesting and
bloody. The robbing and murdering of travellers are
taught as a worthy and obligatory deed by their
strange religious code. Their worship of the three-
eyed goddess Kali is conducted so secretly that no
traveller has ever heretofore had the honour of wit-
nessing the ceremonies. That distinction was re*
served for myself.

"While at Sakaranpur, between Delhi and Khclat,
I used to explore the jungle in every direction in the
hope of learning something new about these mys-
terious Phansigars.

"One evening at twilight I was making my way
through a teakwood forest, when I came upon a deep
circular depression in an open space, in the centre of
which was a rude stone temple. I was sure that this
was one of the temples of the Thugs, so I concealed
myself in the undergrowth to watch.

"When the moon rose the depression in the clearing
was suddenly filled with hundreds of shadowy, swiftly
gliding forms. Then a door opened in the temple,
exposing a brightly illuminated image of the goddess
Kali, before which a white-robed priest began a bar-
barous incantation, while the tribe of worshippers
prostrated themselves upon the earth.

"But what interested me most was the central eve
of the huge wooden idol. I could sec by its flashing

The Diamond of Kali 269

brilliancy that it was an immense diamond of the
purest water.

"After the rites were concluded the Thugs slipped
away into the forest as silently as they had come.
The priest stood for a few minutes in the door of the
temple enjoying the cool of the night before closing
his rather warm quarters. Suddenly a dark, lithe
shadow slipped down into the hollow, leaped upon the
priest, and struck him down with a glittering knife.
Then the murderer sprang at the image of the goddess
like a cat and pried out the glowing central eye of
Kali with his weapon. Straight toward me he ran
with his royal prize. When he was within two paces
I rose to my feet and struck him with all my force
between the eyes. He rolled over senseless and the
magnificent jewel fell from his hand. That is the
splendid blue diamond you have just seen — a stone
worthy of a monarch's crown."

"That's a corking story," said the reporter. "That
decanter is exactly like the one that John W. Gates
always sets out during an interview."

"Pardon me," said General Ludlow, "for forgetting
hospitality in the excitement of my narrative. Help
yourself."

"Here's looking at you," said the reporter.

"What I am afraid of now," said the General, lower-
ing his voice, "is that I may be robbed of the diamond.
The jewel that formed an eye of their goddess is their

270 Sixes and Sevens

most sacred symbol. Somehow the tribe suspected
me of having it; and members of the band have fol-
lowed me half around the earth. They are the most
cunning and cruel fanatics in the world, and their reli-
gious vows would compel them to assassinate the un-
believer who has desecrated their sacred treasure.

"Once in Lucknow three of their agents, disguised
as servants in a hotel, endeavoured to strangle me
with a twisted cloth. Again, in London, two Thugs,
made up as street musicians, climbed into my window
at night and attacked me. They have even tracked
me to this country. My life is never safe. A month
ago, while I was at a hotel in the Berkshires, three of
them sprang upon me from the roadside weeds. I
saved myself then by my knowledge of their customs.*

"How was that, General ?" asked the reporter.

"There was a cow grazing near by," said General
Ludlow, "a gentle Jersey cow. I ran to her side and
stood. The three Thugs ceased their attack, knelt
and struck the ground thrice with their fore-
heads. Then, after many respectful salaams, they
departed."

"Afraid the cow would hook?" asked the reporter.

"No ; the cow is a sacred animal to the Phansigars.
Next to their goddess they worship the cow. They
have never been known to commit any deed of violence
in the presence of the animal they reverence."

"It's a mighty interesting story," said the reporter.

The Diamond of Kali 271

"If you don't mind I'll take another drink, and then
a few notes."

"I will join you," said General Ludlow, with a
courteous wave of his hand.

"If I were you," advised the reporter, "I'd take
that sparkler to Texas. Get on a cow ranch there,
and the Pharisees "

"Phansigars," corrected the General.

"Oh, yes ; the fancy guys would run up against a
long horn every time they made a break."

General Ludlow closed the diamond case and thrust
it into his bosom.

"The spies of the tribe have found me out in New
York," he said, straightening his tall figure. "I'm
familiar with the East Indian cast of countenance,
and I know that my every movement is watched.
They will undoubtedly attempt to rob and murder
me here."

"Here?" exclaimed the reporter, seizing the decan-
ter and pouring out a liberal amount of its contents.

"At any moment," said the General. "But as a
soldier and a connoisseur I shall sell my life and my
diamond as dearly as I can."

At this point of the reporter's story there is a cer-
tain vagueness, but it can be gathered that there was a
loud crashing noise at the rear of the house they were
in. General Ludlow buttoned his coat closely and
sprang for the door. But the reporter clutched him

272 Sixes and Sevens

firmly with one hand, while he held the decanter with
the other.

"Tell me before we fly," he urged, in a voice thick
with some inward turmoil, "do any of your daughters
contemplate going on the stage?"

"I have no daughters — fly for your life — the
Phansigars are upon us !" cried the General.

The two men dashed out of the front door of the
house.

The hour was late. As their feet struck the side-
walk strange men of dark and forbidding appearance
seemed to rise up out of the earth and encompass them.
One with Asiatic features pressed close to the General
and droned in a terrible voice:

"Buy cast clo' !"

Another, dark-whiskered and sinister, sped lithely
to his side and began in a whining voice:

"Say, mister, have yer got a dime fer a poor feller
what "

They hurried on, but onlv into the arms of a black-
eyed, dusky-browed being, who held out his hat under
their noses, while a confederate of Oriental hue turned
the handle of a street organ near by.

Twenty steps farther on General Ludlow and the
reporter found themselves in the midst of half a dozen
villainous-looking men with high-turned coat collars
and faces bristling with unshaven beards.

"Run for it!" hissed the General. "They have

The Diamond of Kali 273

discovered the possessor of the diamond of the god-
dess Kali."

The two men took to their heels. The avengers of
the goddess pursued.

"Oh, Lordy !" groaned the reporter, "there isn't
a cow this side of Brooklyn. We're lost !"

When near the corner they both fell over an iron
object that rose from the sidewalk close to the gutter.
Clinging to it desperately, they awaited their fate.

"If I only had a cow!" moaned the reporter — "or
another nip from that decanter, General!"

As soon as the pursuers observed where their victims
"lad found refuge they suddenly fell back and re-
treated to a considerable distance.

"They are waiting for reinforcements in order to
attack us," said General Ludlow.

But the reporter emitted a ringing laugh, and
hurled his hat triumphantly into the air.

"Guess again," he shouted, and leaned heavily upon
the iron object. "Your old fancy guys or thugs,
whatever you call 'em, are up to date. Dear General,
this is a pump we've stranded upon — same as a cow
in New York (hie!) see? Thas'h why the 'nfuriated
smoked guys don't attack us — see? Sacred an'mal,
the pump in N' York, my dear General !"

But further down in the shadows of Twenty-eighth
Street the marauders were holding a parley.

"Come on, Reddy," said one. "Let's go frisk the

274 Sixes and Sevens

old 'un. He's been showin' a sparkler as big as a hen
egg all around Eighth Avenue for two weeks past."

"Not on your silhouette," decided Reddy. "You
see 'cm rallyin' round The Pump? They're friends
of Bill's. Bill won't stand for nothin' of this kind in
his district since he got that bid to Esopus."

This exhausts the facts concerning the Kali dia-
mond. But it is deemed not inconsequent to close
with the following brief (paid) item that appeared two
days later in a morning paper.

"It is rumored that a niece of Gen. Marcellus B.
Ludlow, of New York City, will appear on the stage
next season.

"Her diamonds are said to be extremely valuable
and of much historic interest."

THE DAY WE CELEBRATE

"IN THE tropics" ("Hop-along" Bibb, the bird

fancier, was saying to me) "the seasons, months, fort-
nights, week-ends, holidays, dog-days, Sundays, and
yesterdays get so jumbled together in the shuffle that
you never know when a year has gone by until you're
in the middle of the next one."

"Hop-along" Bibb kept his bird store on lower
Fourth Avenue. He was an ex-seaman and beach-
comber who made regular voyages to southern ports
and imported personally conducted invoices of talk-
ing parrots and dialectic paroquets. He had a stiff
knee, neck, and nerve. I had gone to him to buy
a parrot to present, at Christmas, to my Aun£
Joanna.

"This one," said I, disregarding his homily on the
subdivisions of time — "this one that seems all red,
white, and blue — to what genus of beasts does he
belong? He appeals at once to my patriotism and
to my love of discord in colour schemes."

"That's a cockatoo from Ecuador," said Bibb.

"All he has been taught to say is 'Merry Christmas.*

275

276 Sixes and Sevens

A seasonable bird. He's only seven dollars ; and I'll
bet many a human has stuck you for more money by
making the same speech to you."

And then Bibb laughed suddenly and loudly.

"That bird," he explained, "reminds me. He's
got his dates mixed. He ought to be saying *E
pluribus unumy to match his feathers, instead of try-
ing to work the Santa Claus graft. It reminds me of
the time me and Liverpool Sam got our ideas of things
tangled up on the coast of Costa Rica on account of
the weather and other phenomena to be met with
in the tropics.

"We were, as it were, stranded on that section of
the Spanish main with no money to speak of and no
friends that should be talked about either. We had
stoked and second-cooked ourselves down there on a
fruit steamer from New Orleans to trv our luck,
which was discharged, after we got there, for lack of
evidence. There was no work suitable to our in-
stincts ; so me and Liverpool began to subsist on the
red rum of the country and such fruit as we could reap
where we had not sown. It was an alluvial town, called
Soledad, where there was no harbour or future op
recourse. Between steamers the town slept and drank
rum. It only woke up when there were bananas
to ship. It was like a man sleeping through dinner
until the dessert.

"When me and Liverpool got so low down that the

The Day We Celebrate 277

American consul wouldn't speak to us we knew we'd
struck bed rock.

"We boarded with a snuff-brown lady named Chica,
who kept a rum-shop and a ladies' and gents' restaur-
ant in a street called the caUe de los Forty-seven In-
consolable Saints. When our credit played out there,
Liverpool, whose stomach overshadowed his sensations
of noblesse oblige, married Chica. This kept us in rice
and fried plantain for a month; and then Chica
pounded Liverpool one morning sadly and earnestly
for fifteen minutes with a casserole handed down
from the stone age, and we knew that we had out-
welcomed our liver. That night we signed an engage-
ment with Don Jaime McSpinosa, a hybrid banana
fancier of the place, to work on his fruit preserves
nine miles out of town. We had to do it or be
reduced to sea water and broken doses of feed and
slumber.

"Now, speaking of Liverpool Sam, I don't malign
or inexculpate him to you any more than I would to
his face. But in my opinion, when an Englishman
gets as low as he can he's got to dodge so that the dregs
of other nations don't drop ballast on him out of their
balloons. And if he's a Liverpool Englishman, why,
fire-damp is what he's got to look out for. Being a
natural American, that's my personal view. But
Liverpool and me had much in common. We were
without decorous clothes or ways and means of

278 Sixes and Sevens

existence; and, as the saying goes, misery certainly
does enj oy the society of accomplices.

"Our job on old McSpinosa's plantation was chop-
ping down banana stalks and loading the bunches of
fruit on the backs of horses. Then a native dressed
up in an alligator hide belt, a machete, and a pair of
AA sheeting pajamas, drives 'em over to the coast and
piles 'em up on the beach.

"You ever been in a banana grove? It's as solemn
as a rathskeller at seven a. m. It's like being lost be-
hind the scenes at one of these mushroom musical
shows. You can't see the sky for the foliage above
you; and the ground is knee deep in rotten leaves;
and it's so still that you can hear the stalks growing
again after you chop 'em down.

"At night me and Liverpool herded in a lot of grass
huts on the edge of a lagoon, with the red, yellow, and
black employes of Don Jaime. There we lay fighting
mosquitoes and listening to the monkeys squalling
and the alligators grunting and splashing in the
lagoon until daylight with only snatches of sleep be-
tween times.

"We soon lost all idea of what time of the year it
was. It's just about eighty degrees there in December
and June and on Fridays and at midnight and election
day and any other old time. Sometimes it rains more
than at others, and that's all the difference vou notice.
A man is liable to live along there without noticing

The Bay We Celebrate 279

any fugiting of tempus until some day the undertaker
calls in for him just when he's beginning to think
about cutting out the gang and saving up a little to
invest in real estate.

"I don't know how long we worked for Don Jaime ;
but it was through two or three rainy spells, eight or
ten hair cuts, and the life of three pairs of sail-cloth
trousers. All the money we earned went for rum and
tobacco ; but we ate, and that was something.

"All of a sudden one day me and Liverpool find the
trade of committing surgical operations on banana
stalks turning to aloes and quinine in our mouths.
It's a seizure that often comes upon white men in
Latin and geographical countries. We wanted to be
addressed again in language and see the smoke of a
steamer and read the real estate transfers and gents'
outfitting ads in an old newspaper. Even Soledad
seemed like a centre of civilization to us, so that
evening we put our thumbs on our nose at Don
Jaime's fruit stand and shook, his grass burrs off our
feet.

"It was only twelve miles to Soledad, but it took
me and Liverpool two days to get there. It was
banana grove nearly all the way ; and we got twisted
time and again. It was like paging the palm room of
a New York hotel for a man named Smith.

"When we saw the houses of Soledad between the
trees all mj disinclination toward this Liverpool Sam

280 Sixes and Sevens

rose up in me. I stood him while we were two white
men against the banana brindles ; but now, when there
were prospects of my exchanging even cuss words with
an American citizen, I put him back in his proper
place. And he was a sight, too, with his rum-painted
nose and his red whiskers and elephant feet with
leather sandals strapped to them. I suppose I looked
about the same.

" 'It looks to me,' says I, 'like Great Britain ought
to be made to keep such gin-swilling, scurvy, unbecom-
ing mud larks as you at home instead of sending 'em
over here to degrade and taint foreign lands. We
kicked you out of America once and we ought to put
on rubber boots and do it again.'

"'Oh, you go to 'ell,' says Liverpool, which was
about all the repartee he ever had.

"Well, Soledad, looked fine to me after Don Jaime's
plantation. Liverpool and me walked into it side by
side, from force of habit, past the calabosa and the
Hotel Grande, down across the plaza toward Chica's
hut, where we hoped that Liverpool, being a husband
of hers, might work his luck for a meal.

"As we passed the two-story little frame house
occupied by the American Club, we noticed that the
balcony had been decorated all around with wreaths
of evergreens and flowers, and the flag was flying from
the pole on the roof. Stanzey, the consul, and Ark-
right, a gold-mine owner, were smoking on the balcony.

The Day We Celebrate 281

Me and Liverpool waved our dirty hands toward
'em and smiled real society smiles; but they turned
their backs to us and went on talking. And we had
played whist once with the two of 'em up to the time
when Liverpool held all thirteen trumps for four
hands in succession. It was some holiday, we knew;
but we didn't know the day nor the year.

"A little further along we saw a reverend man
named Pendergast, who had come to Soledad to build
a church, standing under a cocoanut palm with his
little black alpaca coat and green umbrella.

" 'Boys, boys !' says he, through his blue spectacles,
'is it as bad as this? Are you so far reduced?'

" 'We're reduced,' says I, 'to very vulgar fractions.'

"'It is indeed sad,' says Pendergast, 'to see my
countrymen in such circumstances.'

" 'Cut 'arf of that out, old party,' says Liverpool.
•Cawn't you tell a member of the British upper classes
when you see one?'

" 'Shut up,' I told Liverpool. ^You're on foreign
soil now, or that portion of it that's not on you.'

"'And on this day, too!' goes on Pendergast,
grievous — 'on this most glorious day of the year when
we should all be celebrating the dawn of Christian
civilization and the downfall of the wicked.'

"'I did notice bunting and bouquets decorating
the town, reverend,' says I, 'but I didn't know what
it was for. We've been so long out of touch with

282 Sixes and Sevens

calendars that we didn't know whether it was summer
time or Saturday afternoon.

" 'Here is two dollars/ says Pendergast digging up
two Chili silver wheels and handing 'em to me. 'Go,
my men, and observe the rest of the day in a befitting
manner.'

"Me and Liverpool thanked him kindly, and walked
away.

"'Shall we eat?' I asks.

"'Oh, 'ell!' says Liverpool. 'What's money for?'

" 'Very well, then,' I says, 'since you insist upon it,
we'll drink.'

"So we pull up in a rum shop and get a quart of it
and go down on the beach under a cocoanut tree and
celebrate.

"Not having eaten anything but oranges in two
days, the rum has immediate effect ; and once more I
conjure up great repugnance toward the British
nation.

" 'Stand up here,' I says to Liverpool, 'you scum
of a despot limited monarchy, and have another dose
of Bunker Hill. That good man, Mr. Pendergast,*
says I, 'said we were to observe the day in a befitting
manner, and I'm not going to see his money mis"
applied.'

" 'Oh, you go to 'ell !' says Liverpool, and I started
in with a fine left-hander on his right eye.

"Liverpool had been a fighter once, but dissipation

The Day We Celebrate 288

and bad company had taken the nerve out of him.
In ten minutes I had him lying on the sand waving
the white flag.

" 'Get up,' says I, kicking him in the ribs, 'and come
along with me.'

"Liverpool got up and followed behind me because
it was his habit, wiping the red off his face and nose.
I led him to Reverend Pendergast's shack and called
him out.

" 'Look at this, sir,' says I — 'look at this thing
that was once a proud Britisher. You gave us two
dollars and told us to celebrate the day. The star-
spangled banner still waves. Hurrah for the stars
and eagles !'

" 'Dear me/ says Pendergast, holding up his hands.
'Fighting on this day of all days! On Christmas
day, when peace on '

"'Christmas, hell!' says I. *I thought it was the
Fourth of July.' "

"Merry Christmas !" said the red, white, and blue
cockatoo.

"Take him for six dollars," said Hop-along Bibbw
"He's got his dctes and colours mixed."

THE END

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